LIBRARY 

UNIVWtSlTV  Of 

CALIFOIMIA 
CAN  04C«O 


F 


r. 


THK 


LETTERS 


BRITISH    SPY. 


BY  WILLIAM  WIRT,  ESQ. 


TENTH    EDITION,  REVISED   AND   CORRECTED. 


TO   WHICH   IS   PREFIXED, 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  THE  AUTHOR. 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER,   &   BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 

3J9  &.  331  PEARL  STREET, 
(FRANKLIN  SQUARE.) 

1856. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1832,  by 

J.  &  J.  HARPER, 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  Southern  District  of  New-Yoik 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

OF 

WILLIAM  WIRT. 


IN  reprinting  a  portion  of  the  literary  produc- 
tions of  Mr.  Wirt,  the  publishers  have  thought 
that  a  few  particulars  might  not  be  unacceptable 
to  the  reader,  of  an  individual  who  has  long 
been  familiar  to  the  public  in  other  positions 
very  different  from  that  of  the  writer  or  mere 
man  of  letters.  They  are  indebted,  in  great 
part,  for  the  opportunity  of  giving  these  details, 
to  materials  collected  by  another  hand,  some  time 
since,  and  for  another  purpose.  The  present 
occasion  may  excuse  a  sketch  which  other  obvi- 
ous considerations,  however,  may  render  some- 
what meager.  Biography  has  a  delicate  office 
while  her  subjects  are  yet  living,  as  she  may  be 
accused  of  flattery  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the 
other,  may  be  thought  to  misplace  and  mistime 
the  impartial  censure  which  she,  no  less  than 
History,  owes  to  truth,  when,  like  the  Egyptian 
tribunal,  she  sits  in  judgment  on  the  dead. 


10  BIOGRAPHY   OP 

With  regard  to  the  subject  himself,  the  mind 
most  conscious  of  integrity,  and  the  most  happy 
in  deserved  success,  may  naturally  shrink  from 
that  scrupulous  analysis  which  is  necessary  to 
a  full  delineation  of  it.  It  is  as  naturally  averse 
to  the  relation  of  many  things,  trivial  in  them- 
selves, but  characteristic,  and  which  on  that 
account  are  eagerly  sought  when  the  actors  are 
no  more,  though  till  then  they  may  fail  to  excite 
curiosity  or  interest  in  the  public.  Contempo- 
rary actors  have  their  sensibilities  also ;  a  con- 
sideration which,  in  tracing  the  competitions 
and  conflicts  through  which  an  individual  has 
wrought  his  way  to  honour  and  influence,  may 
require  many  sketches  to  be  withheld,  much  of 
the  colouring  softened,  and  much  of  what  may 
be  called  the  material  action  suppressed. 

It  is  not  so  much  the  brief  memoir  designed 
in  the  following  pages  that  leads  to  these  sug- 
gestions, as  the  observation  how  often  they  are 
neglected  in  the  license  of  the  press  and  the  rage 
of  anecdote.  But  even  in  this  hasty  sketch,  it  is 
evident  how  many  passages  of  a  life  somewhat 
various  and  busy,  and  how  many  incidents  col- 
lected by  his  intimates,  from  an  acute  observer 
and  lively  describer,  must  thus  be  excluded, 
though  at  the  expense  of  the  vivacity  of  the 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  1A 

whole  picture.  At  some  future  day,  and  by 
some  happier  hand,  a  more  minute  delineation 
might  be  profitably  exhibited  of  singular  merit 
gradually  achieving  its  own  reward;  a  career 
the  more  interesting  as  descriptive  of  a  course  of 
fortune  familiar,  though  not  peculiar  indeed,  to 
our  happy  country,  where  native  talent  has  a 
fair  field,  and  where  its  acquisitions  of  honour 
are  more  unquestionably  the  fruit  of  its  own 
intrinsic  vigour. 

In  point  of  pecuniary  circumstances  and  early 
education,  the  subject  of  our  memoir  had  what 
may  be  reckoned  middling  advantages,  consider- 
ing the  aspect  of  our  country  in  both  particulars 
at  that  early  day.  His  parents  left  him  some 
patrimony,  small  indeed,  but  which  was  suffi- 
cient to  procure  him  the  usual  instruction  of  the 
grammar-school.  He  was  born  at  Bladensburg, 
n  Maryland,  on  the  8th  of  Noven  ber,  1772,  and 
was  the  youngest  of  six  children  of  Jacob  and 
Henrietta  Wirt.  His  father  was  a  Swiss,  his 
mother  a  German ;  the  first  died  when  he  was 
yet  an  infant,  the  latter  when  he  was  but  eight 
years  old.  An  orphan  at  this  tender  age,  he 
passed  into  the  family  and  guardianship  of  his 
ancle,  Jasper  Wirt,  who,  as  well  as  his  wife,  was 
TL  Swiss  by  birth,  and  then  resided  near  the  same 


12 

village,  not  far,  we  think,  from  the  Washington 
road.  Mr.  Wirt  retains  very  vivid  impressions 
of  the  character  of  his  aunt,  which  are  worth 
preserving,  both  as  an  amiable  picture  of  a  pious 
and  constant  temper,  and  as  an  evidence  of  early 
observation  in  the  relater.  He  has  always  spoken 
of  her  as  having  a  cast  of  character  worthy  of 
the  land  of  William  Tell.  She  was  tall  and 
rather  large  framed,  with  a  fair  complexion,  and 
a  face  that  must  have  been  handsome  in  youth 
Her  kindliness  of  temper  seems  to  have  made  its 
usual  indelible  impression  on  sensitive  and  lively 
childhood,  whose  little  errors  often  require  that 
tender  disposition  to  excuse,  which  is  sure  to  be 
repaid  by  its  warm  gratitude.  With  thij  allow- 
ance for  the  weakness  of  others,  she  seems  to 
have  had  none  of  her  own,  possessing  a  fine 
mind,  and  an  uncommon  mixture  of  firmness 
and  sensibility.  She  was  very  religious,  and 
a  great  reader  of  pious  books,  of  which  one,  an 
old  folio  German  Bible  or  family  expositor,  in 
its  binding  of  wood  or  black  leather,  with  brass 
clasps,  was  held  in  venerable  remembrance  by 
the  boy,  struck,  no  doubt,  by  the  air  and  voice 
of  devotion  and  deep  feeling  with  which  she  was 
accustomed  to  read  the  consolatory »  olume  aloud. 
A  little  incident  exhibits  a  touch  of  heroism  in 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  13 

her  not  unworthy  to  be  related.  A  thunderstorm 
came  up  one  evening  unusually  violent,  and  as 
the  lightning  became  more  terrific,  the  aunt  got 
down  her  Bible,  and  began  to  read  aloud.  The 
women  were  exceedingly  frightened,  especially 
when  one  appalling  flash  struck  a  tree  in  the 
yard,  and  drove  a  large  splinter  towards  them. 
They  flew  from  their  chairs  into  the  darkest  cor- 
ners of  the  room.  The  aunt  alone  remained  firm 
in  her  seat,  at  actable  in  the  middle  of  the  floor, 
arid  noticed  the  peal  in  no  other  way  than  by 
the  increased  energy  of  her  voice.  This  contrast 
struck  the  young  observer,  then  not  more  than 
six  years  of  age,  with  so  much  force,  that  he 
describes  the  scene  as  fresh  before  him  to  the 
present  moment,  and  as  giving  him  an  early 
impression  of  the  superiour  dignity  with  which 
firmness  and  piety  invest  the  character. 

Most  lively  boys  remember  pretty  faithfully 
the  picturesque  scenes  or  incidents  of  their  child- 
hood, the  village  green,  the  haunted  house,  the 
first  advent  of  the  rope-dancer,  and  those  "  Cir- 
censian  games"  with  which  they  are  as  univer- 
sally captivated  as  were  the  Roman  People 
themselves.  The  personages  also  that  figured 
in  the  early  scene,  are  remembered  with  some 
general  notion  of  their  being  venerable  or  ridicu- 


14  BIOGRAPHY   OP 

lous,  good-natured  or  cross,  in  the  reputation  of 
the  neighbourhood,  or  in  the  apprehension  of  the 
urchin  himself.  Our  future  jurisprudent  might 
be  thought  to  be  born  for  a  painter  or  a  drama- 
tist, to  judge  from  his  oddly  minute  memory  01 
localities,  persons  and  costume.  The  village  of 
Bladensburg  was  at  this  time  the  most  active 
and  bustling  place  of  trade  in  Maryland.  It 
stands  in  the  midst  of  a  tobacco  country,  and 
was  then  the  great  place  of  export  for  the  state 
There  was  a  large  "tobacco  inspection"  there; 
eeveral  rich  resident  merchants,  and  some  Scotch 
and  other  foreign  factors,  with  large  capitals. 
During  this  its  "high  and  palmy  state,"  a  lot  in 
it  was  worth  the  price  of  three  of  the  best  lots  in 
Georgetown,  Belhaven,  (now  Alexandria,)  or 
Baltimore.  It  is  now  a  decayed,  ruinous  ham- 
let, through  which  the  late  Attorney-General  of 
the  United  States  has  often  passed,  in  his  profes 
sional  journeys,  with  those  natural  emotions,  no 
doubt,  which  such  a  spot,  revisited  under  such 
circumstances,  might  excite  in  minds  of  less 
poetical  sensibility  than  his.  But  if  there  is  a 
complacent  satisfaction  to  be  envied  on  earth,  it 
is  that  which  must  often  have  arisen  in  his  mind 
in  retracing  this  scene  of  his  childhood.  At  that 
day  tbe  free  empire  in  which  he  was  to  be  an 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  15 

ornament  and  a  conspicuous  actor,  had  not  even 
an  existence ;  and  little  did  those  foresee,  who 
caressed  him  as  an  apt,  imitative  boy,  that  on 
hills  almost  within  sight  of  his  humble  patrimo- 
nial roof,  proud  domes  were  to  arise  in  which  he 
was  to  discharge  the  functions  of  the  highest 
legal  office  of  the  republic,  and  sit  in  council  on 
its  most  momentous  concerns.  When  a  few 
years  afterward  it  was  a  question  with  his  guar- 
dian whether  to  continue  his  education  with  the 
small  means  devolved  from  his  father,  an  ex- 
pression was  let  fall  by  his  worthy  and  not  undis- 
cerning  aunt,  involuntarily  prophetic.  In  urging 
that  he  should  be  continued  at  school,  "When 
I  look  at  that  dear  child,"  said  she,  "  he  hardly 
seems  one  of  us,  and  I  weep  when  I  think  of 
him."  They  were  doubtless  tears  of  joyful  pride, 
the  full  measure  of  which  it  is  as  natural  and 
frequent  a  wish,  as  it  is  often  a  vain  one,  that 
the  tender  guardians  of  youthful  promise  might 
oftener  live  to  feel. 

In  his  seventh  year  he  was  sent  from  home 
to  school;  a  melancholy  era  in  the  memory  of 
most  boys.  There  was  a  classical  school  in 
Georgetown,  eight  miles  from  Bladensburg,  un- 
der the  direction  of  a  Mr.  Rogers,  and  the  boy 
was  placed  to  board  at  the  house  of  a  Quaker  of 


1.6  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

the  name  of  Scholfield,  who  occupied  a  small  log 
house  on  Bridge-street.  His  wife  was  a  kind 
creature,  whose  good  nature  was  touched  by  the 
grief  of  the  child  at  his  first  exile  from  home, 
and  displayed  itself  in  many  characteristic  topics 
of  consolation,  remembered  to  this  day  by  a  tern 
per  naturally  sensitive  and  grateful.  Among 
other  little  expedients  by  which  the  good-nature? 
woman  sought  to  allay  the  burst  of  boyish  sor 
row,  she  had  recourse  to  the  story  of  Joseph  in 
Egypt.  She  made  him  enter  into  the  distresses 
of  the  son  and  his  aged  father  in  their  separation, 
and  so  forget  his  own  ;  insinuating  that,  as  the 
separation  had  brought  Joseph  to  great  honours, 
so  his  might  turn  out  equally  fortunate. 

When  the  boy  grew  to  be  a  man,  he  went  U 
see  kind  Mrs.  Scholfield,  and  a  warmer  meeting 
seldom  takes  place  between  mother  and  son. 
Schools  for  teaching  the  classics  were  rare  in 
those  days,  and  Mr.  Rogers's  contained  quite  t 
small  army  of  boys  and  young  men,  of  whon 
Richard  Brent,  since  a  member  of  Congress 
from  Virginia,  was  one.  Our  tyro  remained  at 
it  less  than  a  year,  and  never  had  much  pleasure 
in  recollecting  it,  perhaps  from  some  injudicious 
rigour,  which  he  thought  had  the  effect  ol  break- 
ing his  spirit.  He  was  transferred  to  a  classical 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  17 

school  in  Charles  county,  Maryland,  about  forly 
miles  from  Bladensburg,  and  boarded  with  an 
old  \vidow  lady  of  the  name  of  Love.  The 
school  was  kept  by  one  Hatch  Dent,  in  the  ves- 
try-house of  Newport  church.  Here,  being  a 
lively  boy,  he  was  a  great  favourite  in  the  family, 
and  seems  to  have  been  as  happy  as  a  boy  can 
be,  separated  from  the  natural  objects  of  his 
affection,  and  with  nothing  to  mar  his  pleasure 
except  going  to  school  and  getting  tasks  in  the 
holydays,  the  latter  of  which  seems  to  have  been 
an  ingenious  contrivance  of  our  forefathers  to  de- 
form the  elysium  of  vacations  by  an  early  hint  of 
the  transitoriness  of  pleasure.  In  these  changes 
from  place  to  place,  he  appears  to  have  been 
fortunate  in  finding  kind  friends ;  a  circumstance 
which,  as  it  arose  out  of  a  natural  goodness  of 
disposition,  accompanied  him  through  life. 

Mr.  Dent  was  a  most  excellent  man,  very 
good-tempered,  who  either  found  no  occasion, 
or,  with  the  exception  of  a  single  application  of 
the  ferrule,  no  inclination,  to  punish  his  young 
pupil,  who  in  two  years  advanced  as  far  as 
Caesar's  Commentaries,  though  perhaps  without 
being  properly  grounded  in  his  author.  Here, 
as  at  Georgetown,  there  was  quite  a  crowd  of 

boys,    and  several   young    men  fully  grown. 
2* 


tb  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

Amcttg  the  latter  was  Alexander  Campbell,  who 
afterward  became  well  known  in  Virginia  as 
an  orator,  and  still  more  for  his  untimely  and 
melancholy  death.  This  accomplished  and  un- 
fortunate gentleman,  of  whose  argument  in  the 
case  of  Ray  and  Garnett,  reported  in  Washing- 
ton's Reports,  Mr.  Pendleton,  the  President  of 
the  Court  of  Appeals,  is  said  to  have  spoken  as 
the  most  perfect  model  of  forensic  discussion  he 
had  ever  heard,  was  then  from  eighteen  to 
twenty  years  of  age,  manly  and  dignified  in  his 
deportment,  and  of  a  grave  and  thoughtful  air, 
occasionally,  only,  relaxed  into  a  gayer  mood, 
and  with  that  remarkable  tremulous  eye  by 
which  others  of  his  family  were  also  distinguish- 
ed. He  had  just  gained  the  prize  of  eloquence 
in  the  school  at  Georgetown,  and  his  manners 
perhaps  as  much  as  his  age  procured  him  from 
the  school-boys  at  Mr.  Dent's,  the  title  of  Mr. 
Campbell.  He  began  his  career  at  the  bar  some 
years  after  Chief  Justice  Marshall  and  Judge 
Washington,  who  must  themselves  have  com- 
menced practice  after  the  Revolutionary  T^ar. 
Edmund  Randolph  began  a  little  before,  or  per- 
haps just  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  war,  and 
Patrick  Henry  about  fifteen  years  earlier.  All 
these  celebrated  men  were  still  at  the  bar  when 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  19 

Mr.  Campbell  appeared  at  it ;  he  was  engaged 
frequently  in  the  same  causes  with  them,  and  it 
is  a  high  praise  to  say  that  even  among  them  he 
was  a  distinguished  man.  Mr.  Wirt  has  said 
of  him,  "he  did  not  wield  the  Herculean  club  of 
Marshall,  nor  did  his  rhetoric  exhibit  the  Gothic 
magnificence  of  Henry ;  but  his  quiver  was  fur- 
nished with  arrows  polished  to  the  finest  point, 
that  were  launched  with  Apollonian  skill  and 
grace."  He  was  yet  at  the  bar  of  the  superiour 
courts  of  Virginia,  when  Mr.  Wirt  had  grown  up 
and  commenced  the  practice  of  law  in  the  upper 
part  of  that  state,  and  was  held  to  stand  in  the 
first  rank  of  genius.  The  latter  adds,  "  Some 
of  the  most  beautiful  touches  of  eloquence  I  have 
ever  heard,  were  echoes  from  Campbell  which 
reached  us  in  our  mountains."  This  promising 
career  was  cut  short  by  a  lamentable  death.  He 
left  a  whimsical  will,  in  which,  among  other 
odd  things,  was  a  request  that  no  stone  might 
be  laid  on  his  grave,  for  the  reason  that,  If  a 
stone  were  placed  on  every  grave,  there  would 
be  no  earth  left  for  tillage. 

From  Mr.  Dent's,  the  subject  of  our  memoir 
was  removed  in  his  eleventh  year,  to  a  very 
flourishing  school  kept  by  the  Rev.  James  Hunt, 
a  Presbyterian  clergyman  in  Montgomery  county, 


20  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

Maryland.  At  this  school  he  remained  \  it 
was  broken  up,  that  is,  till  1787,  and  here,  dur- 
ing a  period  of  four  years,  he  received  the  prin- 
cipal part  of  his  education,  being  carried  through 
all  the  Latin  and  Greek  classics  then  usually 
taught  in  grammar-schools,  and  instructed  in 
geography  and  some  of  the  branches  of  the 
mathematics,  including  arithmetic,  trigonometry, 
surveying,  and  the  first  six  books  of  Euclid's 
Elements.  During  the  last  two  years  of  the 
time,  he  boarded  with  Mr.  Hunt.  This  gentle- 
man was  a  graduate  of  Princeton  college,  of 
some  learning,  fond  of  conversation  and  reading, 
and  when  engaged  in  the  latter,  of  evenings, 
would  sometimes  read  to  the  boys  any  interesting 
passages  of  the  book  before  him.  One  of  his 
favourites  was  Josephus,  in  which  our  youth 
was  as  much  taken  with  the  account  of  the  his- 
torian's defence  of  the  fortified  town  of  Jotapata, 
as  Kotzebue  tells  us  he  was  captivated  in  like 
mamier  by  the  story  of  the  siege  of  Jerusalem. 
Our  clergyman,  who  in  his  suit  of  black  velvet 
was  quite  a  stately  and  graceful  person,  had  a 
pair  of  globes  and  a  telescope,  with  the  aid  of 
which,  and  by  conversation,  he  gave  his  pupils 
some  smattering  of  astronomy.  Added  to  these 
was  an  electrical  machine,  with  which  he  took 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  21 

pleasure  in  making  experiments,  to  the  enter- 
tainment and  instruction  not  only  of  his  scholars, 
but  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  neighbour- 
hood. But  the  most  important  part  of  his  pos- 
sessions was  a  good  general  library,  in  which 
our  youth,  now  a  lad  of  twelve  or  thirteen,  first 
contracted  a  passion  for  reading,  or  fed  it  rather, 
it  being  first  kindled  by  "  Guy,  Earl  of  War- 
wick," which  he  obtained  from  a  carpenter  in  the 
employ  of  Mr.  Hunt,  and  further  fanned  by  a 
fragment  of  Peregrine  Pickle,  neither  of  which 
famous  works,  probably,  was  found  in  the  library 
of  the  reverend  preceptor.  Those  which  made 
the  nearest  approach  to  them  were  the  British 
Dramatists,  which  our  reader  devoured  with 
insatiable  appetite,  and,  having  exhausted  them, 
was  driven  from  necessity  on  the  works  of  Pope 
and  Addison,  and  then  on  Home's  Elements  of 
Criticism.  As  this  reading  was  wholly  a  volun- 
tary, and  somewhat  furtive  affair  on  his  part,  he 
drifted  along  through  the  library  pretty  much 
like  the  hero  of  Waverley  and  the  historian  of 
Waverley  himself,  as  chance  or  caprice  directed, 
mastering  nothing  perhaps,  yet  increasing  hia 
Block  of  ideas,  and  deriving  some  cultivation  of 
taste  from  the  exercise ;  a  sort  of  reading  much 
too  captivating  and  absorbing  to  the  youthful 


22  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

mind  not  to  impregnate  it  with  thought,  and  fit 
it,  at  all  events,  for  better  directed  efforts ;  as  the 
shedding  from  our  forests  prepares  a  richer  soil 
for  the  hand  of  regular  cultivation.  The  dis- 
covery that  Pope  began  to  compose  at  twelve 
years  of  age,  begat  in  our  student  the  same  sort 
of  emulation  as  the  like  example  in  Cowley  did 
in  Pope.  He  reproached  himself  for  his  back- 
wardness when  he  was  now  already  thirteen. 
The  first  attempt  was  a  little  discouraging.  It 
was  in  verse,  and  he  was  embarrassed  as  usual 
by  the  awkward  alternative  of  sacrificing  the 
rhythm  to  the  thought,  or  (which  is  the  usual 
preference  in  such  cases,)  the  thought  to  the 
rhythm.  He  came  to  the  disappointing  conclu- 
sion that  he  was  no  poet,  but  indemnified  him- 
self by  more  lucky  efforts  in  prose,  one  of  which 
falling  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Hunt,  he  expressed 
his  favourable  surprise,  and  exhorted  the  adven- 
turer to  persevere,  who  thus  encouraged  became 
a  confirmed  reader  and  author. 

One  of  these  juvenile  essays  was  engendered 
by  a  school  incident,  and  was  a  piece  of  revenge, 
more  legitimate  than  schoolboy  invention  is  apt 
to  inflict  when  sharpened  by  wrongs  real  or 
imaginary.  There  was  an  usher  at  the  school, 
and  this  usher,  who  was  more  learned  and  me- 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  23 

thodical  than  even-tempered,  was  one  morning 
delayed  in  the  customary  routine  by  the  absence 
of  his  principal  scholar,  who  was  young  Wirt 
himself.  In  his  impatience  he  went  often  to  the 
door,  and  espying  some  boys  clinging  like  a 
knot  of  bees  to  a  cheny-tree  not  far  off,  he  con 
eluded  that  the  expected  absentee  was  of  the 
number,  and  nursed  his  wrath  accordingly. 
The  truth  was,  that  the  servant  of  a  neighbour 
with  whom  Wirt  was  boarded  at  the  time,  had 
gone  that  morning  to  mill,  and  the  indispensable 
breakfast  had  been  delayed  by  his  late  return. 
This  apology,  however,  was  urged  in  vain  on 
the  usher,  who  charged  in  corroboration  the 
plunder  of  the  cherry-tree ;  and  though  this  was 
as  stoutly  as  truly  rejoined  to  be  the  act  of  an 
English  school  hard  by,  the  recitation  of  mas- 
ter Wirt  proceeded  under  very  threatening  prog- 
nostics of  storm.  The  lesson  was  in  Cicero, 
and  at  every  hesitation  of  the  reciter,  the  elo- 
quent volume,  brandished  by  the  yet  chafing 
tutor,  descended  within  an  inch  of  his  head, 
without  quailing  his  facetiousness  however,  for 
he  said  archly,  "take  care,  or  you'll  kill  me." 
We  have  heard  better  timed  jests  since  from  the 
dexterous  orator,  for  the  next  slip  brought  a  blow 
in  good  earnest,  which  being  as  forcible  as  ii 


24  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

Logic  herself,  with  her  "closed  fist,"  had  dealt 
it,  felled  our  hero  to  the  ground.  "  I'll  pay  you 
for  this,  if  I  live,"  said  the  fallen  champion,  as 
he  rose  from  the  field.  "  Pay  me,  will  you  T' 
said  the  usher,  quite  furious ;  "  you  will  never 
live  to  do  that."  "  Yes,  I  will,"  said  the  boy. 

Our  youth  was  an  author,  be  it  remembered, 
and  that  is  not  a  race  to  take  an  injury,  much 
less  an  affront,  calmly.  The  quill,  too,  was  a 
fair  weapon  against  an  usher,  and  by  way  of 
vent  to  his  indignation  at  this  and  other  con- 
tinued outrages,  but  with  no  vjew  to  what  so 
seriously  fell  out  from  it  in  furtherance  of  his 
revenge,  he  indited  some  tune  afterward  an 
ethical  essay  on  Anger.  In  this,  after  due  exhi- 
bition of  its  unhappy  effects,  which,  it  may  be, 
would  have  enlightened  Seneca,  though  he  has 
himself  professed  to  treat  the  same  subject,  he 
reviewed  those  relations  and  functions  of  life 
most  exposed  to  the  assaults  of  this  Fury.  A 
parent  with  an  undutiful  son,  said  our  moralist, 
must  often  be  very  angry ; — a  master  with  his 
servant,  an  inn-keeper  with  his  guests ; — but  it 
is  an  usher  that  must  the  oftenest  be  vexed  by 
this  bad  passion,  and,  right  or  wrong,  find  him- 
self in  a  terrible  rage ;  and  so  he  went  on,  in  a 
manner  very  edifying,  and  very  descriptive  of 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  26 

the  case,  character  and  manner  of  the  expounder 
of  Cicero.  Well  pleased  with  his  work,  our 
author  found  a  most  admiring  reader  in  an  elder 
boy,  who,  charmed  with  the  mischief  as  much 
as  the  wit  of  the  occasion,  pronounced  it  a  most 
excellent  performance,  and  very  fit  for  a  Satur- 
day morning's  declamation.  In  vain  did  our 
wit  object  strenuously  the  dangers  of  this  mode 
of  publication.  The  essay  was  "got  by  heart," 
and  declaimed  in  the  presence  of  the  school  and 
of  the  usher  himself,  who,  enraged  at  the  satire, 
demanded  the  writer,  otherwise  threatening  the 
declaimer  with  the  rod.  His  magnanimity  was 
not  proof  against  this,  and  he  betrayed  the 
incognito  of  our  author,  who  happened  the  same 
evening  .to  be  in  his  garret  when  master  usher, 
the  obnoxious  satire  in  hand,  came  into  the 
apartment  below  to  lay  his  complaint  before  his 
principal.  Mr.  Hunt's  house  was  one  of  those 
one-story  rustic  mansions  yet  to  be  seen  in  Ma- 
ryland, where  the  floor  of  the  attic,  without  the 
intervention  of  ceiling,  forms  the  roof  of  the 
apartment  below,  so  that  the  culprit  could  easily 
be  the  hearer,  and  even  the  partial  spectator,  of 
the  inquisition  held  on  his  case.  "  Let  us  see 
this  offensive  libel,"  said  the  preceptor,  and  awful 
were  the  first  silent  moments  of  its  perusal, 


26  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

which  were  broken,  first  by  a  suppressed  titter, 
and  finally,  to  the  mighty  relief  of  the  listener, 
by  a  loud  burst  of  laughter.  "Pooh!  pooh! 

Mr. ,  this  is  but  the  sally  of  a  lively  boy, 

and  best  say  no  more  about  it ;  besides  that,  in 
foro  conscientice,  we  can  hardly  find  him  guilty 
of  the 'publication.'"  This  was  a  victory ;  and 
when  Mr.  Hunt  left  the  room,  the  conqueror, 
Vmipted  to  sing  his  "lo  triumphe"  in  some  song 
allusive  to  the  country  of  the  discomfited  party, 
who  was  a  foreigner,  was  put  to  flight  by  the 
latter's  rushing  furiously  into  the  attic,  and 
snatching  from  under  his  pillow  some  hickories, 
the  fasces  of  his  office,  and  inflicting  some  smart 
strokes  on  the  flying  satirist,  who  did  not  stay, 
like  Voltaire,  to  write  a  receipt  for  them.  The 
usher  left  the  school  in  dudgeon  not  long  after- 
ward, like  the  worthy  in  the  doggerel  rhymes,  - 

"  The  hero  who  did  'sist  upon'! 
He  wouldn't  be  deputy  to  Mr.  Hunt" 

Many  years  after,  the  usher  and  his  scholar 
met  again.  Age  and  poverty  had  overtaken  the 
poor  man,  and  his  former  pupil  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  showing  him  some  kindnesses  which 
were  probably  not  lessened  by  the  recollection  of 
this  unpremeditated  revenge. 

Another  little  incident  that  occurred  at  this 


WILLIAM    W*IRT.  27 

school  had  some  effect  in  shaping  the  fortunes 
of  the  subject  of  this  sketch.  Mr.  Hunt  was  in 
the  habit  of  giving  his  boys  one  day  in  ttie  court 
week  at  Montgomery  court-house,  to  go  and 
hear  the  lawyers  plead.  There  were  then 
some  distinguished  men  at  that  bar,  and  among 
them  one  who  had  just  commenced  practice,  the 
late  William  H.  Dorsey.  This  was  a  great  treat 
to  the  boys,  who  made  their  way  on  foot,  early 
of  a  morning,  to  the  court-house,  about  four 
miles ;  took  their  position  in  some  gallery  or  box, 
from  which  they  could  hear  and  see  all  that 
passed;  and  looked  and  listened  with  all  the 
greedy  attention  of  young  rustics  at  their  first 
visit  to  a  theatre.  The  struggles  of  young  Dorsey 
with  the  veterans  opposed  to  him,  found  most 
favour  in  the  eyes  of  these  exoterick  disciples  of 
the  law.  He  was  fluent,  keen,  animated  and 
dexterous,  and  as  often  the  foiler  as  the  foiled. 
This  sport  was  so  delightful  to  them  that  they 
determined  to  have  a  court  of  their  own,  and 
Wirt  was  appointed  to  draft  a  constitution  and 
body  of  laws,  which  he  reported  accordingly, 
with  an  apologetic  letter  prefixed.  In  this  court 
he  was  a  practitioner  of  eminence.  The  semi-an- 
nual examinations  and  exhibitions  at  the  school 
afforded  another  theatre  of  competition.  On 


28  biOGRAPHY    OF 

these  occasions  they  delivered  speeches  and  acted 
plays,  and  as  Mr.  Hunt  had  high  notions  of  ora- 
tory, and  duly  instructed  them  in  tone  and  gus- 
ture,  and  as  there  were  always  large  audiences 
of  gentlemen  and  ladies,  the  occasion  was  full 
of  excitement  and  emulation.  Wirt  bore  off  one 
of  the  prizes  of  eloquence  at  these  exhibitions ; 
his  speech  was  a  prologue  of  Farquhar's,  adapt- 
ed to  the  occasion  by  Mr.  Hunt,  and,  young  as 
he  was,  he  could  not  help  suspecting  that  his 
reverend  teacher's  partiality  for  his  own  work 
had  some  share  in  the  award  of  the  preference. 
There  was  another  exercise  at  this  school,  now, 
we  believe,  fallen  into  disuse,  at  least  in  America. 
This  was  "  capping  verses,"  as  it  is  called, — a 
sort  of  game  of  the  memory  to  which  we  suspect 
the  orators  of  St.  Stephen's  chapel  are  as  much 
indebted  for  the  quotations  from  the  classics  in 
vogue  there,  as  to  any  warm  poetic  sensibility. 
In  this  exercise,  which  is  not  an  unuseful  one, 
the  boys  became  at  length  so  well  supplied 
with  the  appropriate  weapons,  that  the  venerable 
teacher  had  to  close  it  himself,  which  he  was 
wont  to  do  with  Virgil's  "Claudite  jam  rivos, 
pueri,  sat  prata  biberunt." 

When  Mr.  Hunt's  school  was  broken  up,  his 
pupil  was  but  fifteen,  and  his  little  patrimony 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  29 

being  insufficient  either  to  support  him  at  college 
or  meet  the  expense  of  a  professional  education 
he  was  exposed  to  the  danger  of  an  idle  residence 
in  the  village  of  Bladensburg,  under  no  other 
control  than  that  which  his  guardian  thought 
proper  to  exercise,  which  practically  was  no  con- 
trol at  all.  From  the  dangers  of  this  situation 
the  "constitution"  and  prefatory  letter  before 
mentioned,  chanced  to  be  instrumental  in  deli 
vering  him.  Among  the  boys  at  school  when 
that  juvenile  trifle  was  produced,  was  Ninian 
Edwards,  the  late  governor  of  Illinois,  the  son 
of  Mr.  Benjamin  Edwards,  who  resided  in  Mont- 
gomery county,  and  subsequently  represented 
that  district  in  Congress.  On  his  return  home, 
young  Edwards  took  with  him  the  aforesaid 
constitution  and  letter  for  the  amusement  of  his 
father;  and  that  gentleman  fancied  that  he  saw 
something  of  promise  in  the  letter  which  deserved 
a  better  fate  than  the  young  author's  seemed 
likely  to  be.  On  the  evidence  of  this  little 
essay,  for  he  had  never  seen  him,  and  learn- 
ing that  he  had  completed  the  course  of  the 
grammar-school,  and  had  not  the  means  to  push 
his  education  further ;  perhaps,  too,  on  the  fa- 
vourable report  of  his  school-fellows,  he  kindly 

wrote  to  invite  him  to  take  up  his  residence  in 
»  o# 


30  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

his  family,  where,  he  said,  lie  could  prepare  the 
writer's  son  and  nephews  for  college,  while  he 
could  at  the  same  time  continue  his  studies  with 
the  aid  of  the  small  library  there.  The  invita- 
tion was  accepted,  and  fortunately  so,  it  being 
Mr.  Wirt's  conviction,  often  expressed,  that  it 
was  to  this  gentleman's  peculiar  and  happy  casl 
of  character  that  he  owed  most  of  what  may  be 
praiseworthy  in  his  own.  Mr.  Edwards's  educa- 
tion was  limited ;  but  he  had  that  natural  vigour 
of  mind  which  more  than  atones  for  its  defects. 
He  had  found  leisure,  nevertheless,  amidst  his 
occupations  as  planter  and  merchant,  to  acquaint 
himself  with  the  historians,  from  whom  he  had 
imbibed  as  lively  a  veneration  for  the  Catos 
and  Brutuses  as  Algernon  Sydney  himself. 
His  own  person  and  presence  had  much  of  the 
heroic  character.  To  these  he  added  a  polite 
and  easy  manner,  which,  though  a  little  stately 
abroad,  was  sportive  and  facetious  in  private. 
This  gentleman,  so  well  adapted  to  win  the 
regard  of  a  young  man,  while  his  character  pre- 
sented a  model  very  proper  to  be  imitated,  was 
also  a  natural  orator,  unaffected,  but  with  all 
that  unction  which  natural  benignity  imparts. 
On  some  occasion  that  concerned  the  interests  of 
his  country,  he  pronounced  a  maiden  speech  in 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  -    31 

the  assembly  of  Maryland,  which  was  so  well 
received  by  the  patriot,  Samuel  Chase,  that  he 
came  across  the  house,  and  warmly  congratula 
ted  the  speaker.  He  had  a  melodious  and  flexi- 
ble voice^  his  enunciation  was  distinct  and  clear, 
and  his  language  astonishingly  copious,  correct 
and  appropriate.  A  still  better  point  than  these 
for  forming  a  young  mind,  was  the  candour  and 
moderation  of  his  way  of  thinking.  Intellectual 
arrogance,  he  often  took  occasion  to  say,  was  the 
strongest  proof  of  ignorance  and  imbecility ;  and 
though  an  independent  thinker,  with  bold  and 
original  conceptions,  he  liked  to  draw  out  those 
about  him  to  combat  his  opinions.  One  dwells 
with  satisfaction  on  characters  of  this  cast,  of 
which  our  revolutionary  age,  like  all  other  great 
and  stirring  crises,  was  profuse.  Indeed,  Mr. 
Edwards  added  to  the  properties  we  have  de- 
scribed, the  full  inspiration  of  that  remarkable 
period ;  and  having  been  conversant  with  its 
scenes  and  its  actors,  felt  that  warm  and  high 
patriotism  which  the  difficulties  and  the  happy 
issue  of  the  struggle  were  equally  adapted  to 
create. 

This  kind  and  judicious  man,  whose  share  in 
forming  the  character  of  his  young  friend,  and 
giving  his  fortunes  a  favourable  turn,  has  led  us 


32  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

to  speak  of  him  more  at  large,  took  great  pains 
to  draw  out  the  qualities  and  talents  of  the  youth 
from  the  cloud  of  a  natural  bashfulness.  This 
timidity  was  so  great  that  he  could  scarcely  get 
through  a  sentence  intelligibly ;  and  to  correct 
this  bias  of  temper,  his  friend  endeavoured  to 
raise  his  estimate  of  himself,  kindly  reminding 
him  of  his  natural  advantages,  and  that,  in  the 
common  phrase,  the  game  of  his  fortune  was  in 
his  own  hand.  He  pointed  his  attention  to 
many  men  who  had  emerged  from  an  obscure 
condition  by  force  of  their  own  exertions  ;  efforts 
to  which  our  political  institutions  were  especially 
propitious,  as  they  threw  open  the  lists  of  honour 
to  generous  emulation.  "  Mr.  Dorsey,"  said  he, 
"whom  you  so  much  admire,  and  Mr.  Pinkney, 
whom  you  have  not  seen,  but  who  is  more  wor- 
thy still  of  your  admiration,  are  making  their 
own  way  to  distinction,  under  as  great  disadvan- 
tages as  any  you  have  to  encounter."  These 
encouragements  and  assurances  were  regarded 
bv  the  youth  as  kindly  overcharging  his  advi- 
«>er's  real  estimate  of  him,  and  as  a  kind  of  pious 
fraud,  intended  for  his  good ;  till  many  years 
after,  when  he  was  chancellor  at  Williamsburg, 
in  Virginia,  he  received  a  long  letter  from  his  old 
friend,  reminding  him  of  these  predictions,  and 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  33 

adding  that  he  considered  his  career  as  only 
begun. 

Mr.  Wirt's  enunciation  was  at  this  time  of 
life  thick  and  hasty,  and  he  was  alternately 
counselled  and  rallied  on  this  defect  by  his 
friend,  whose  discernment  and  native  goodness 
of  heart,  seem  equally  to  have  engaged  him  in 
developing  tRe  mind  and  manners  of  the  young 
man,  and  urging  him  upon  a  career  befitting  his 
natural  good  parts.  As  this  impeded  utterance 
arose  chiefly  from  the  bashfulness  which  Mr. 
Edwards,  as  we  have  said,  took  such  kind 
means  to  counteract,  the  latter,  among  other  ex- 
amples of  encouragement,  used  to  tell  the  story 
of  his  own  debut  in  the  Maryland  Assembly, 
when,  as  he  declared,  his  alarm  spread  such  a 
mist  before  his  eyes  that  he  spoke,  as  it  were,  in 
the  dark,  and  was  surprised  to  find  from  Mr. 
Chase's  congratulation,  that  he  h*ad  even  been 
talking  sense.  He  at  the  same  time  directed 
our  youth's  attention  to  historical  studies,  which 
had  formed  no  part  of  his  reading  in  his  miscel- 
laneous and  accidental  selections  from  Mr. 
Hunt's  library. 

Under  the  roof  of  Mr.  Edwards,  or  in  his 
immediate  neighbourhood,  the  subject  of  our 
memoir  remained  about  twenty  months,  in  the 


34  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

occupations  already  described.  These  increased 
his  familiarity  with  the  Latin  and  Greek  classics, 
and  led  him  to  exercises  of  his  own  pen,  which 
often  served  for  the  declamations  of  the  boya 
under  his  instruction.  Thus,  at  a  most  critical 
age,  and  under  circumstances  which  but  for  Mr. 
Edwards,  might  have  plunged  him  into  that 
idle  career  which  is  often  the  consed\ience  of  dis- 
couraging prospects,  he  was  engaged  in  a  course 
of  life  highly  favourable  to  his  mental  habits, 
while  in  the  lessons  and  example  of  a  valuable 
frjend3  he  found  not  less  propitious  impulses  to 
his  morals,  and  to  raising  his  hopes  and  views  in 
life.  It  were  ascribing  too  much  sway  to  mere 
accident  in  "  shaping  our  ends,"  not  to  interpose 
a  remark  which  these  anecdotes  may  have 
already  suggested.  Doubtless  the  merit  was  not 
small  which  could  awake  so  friendly  and  tender 
a  concern  ;  arid  must,  under  any  circumstances, 
have  attracted  regard,  and  found  efficient  friends. 
Men  seldom  achieve  more  than  they  deserve ; 
a  proposition  for  the  most  part  denied  by  those 
only  who  in  some  way  have  been  wanting  to 
themselves. 

In  this  year,  1789,  showing  some  symptoms 
of  what  was  feared  to  be  consumption,  he  was 
advised,  by  his  physician,  to  pass  the  winter  in 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  35 

a  southern  climate.  He  went  accordingly  on 
horseback,  as  far  as  Augusta,  in  Georgia,  and 
remained  there  till  the  following  spring.  On  his 
return,  he  commenced  the  study  of  law  at  Mont- 
gomery court-house,  with  Mr.  William  P.  Hunt, 
the  son  of  his  old  preceptor ;  this  he  pursued 
subsequently  with  Mr.  Thomas  Swann,  now  the 
United  States'  Attorney  for  the  District  of  Co- 
lumbia, on  whose  application,  aided  by  his  good 
offices,  he  obtained  a  license  for  practice  in  the 
autumn  of  1792.  In  the  same  autumn  he  re- 
moved to  Culpepper  court-house,  in  Virginia, 
and  commenced  his  professional  career  there, 
being  at  the  time  only  twenty  years  of  age. 

His  health  had  now  become  confirmed,  and 
he  entered  with  the  advantage'  of  a  vigorous 
constitution,  on  a  profession  whose  toilsomeness 
renders  that  advantage  hardly  less  essential  to 
splendid  success,  than,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
Great  Captain  of  the  age,  it  was  to  military  for- 
tune. He  had,  from  nature,  the  further  recom- 
mendation of  a  good  person  and  carriage,  and 
of  a  prepossessing  appearance.  The  urbanity 
which  now  belongs  to  him,  was  then  alloyed  by 
some  impetuousness  of  manner.  It  arose,  we 
believe,  chiefly  out  of  his  own  diffidence,  a  feel- 
ing which  often  makes  the  expression  turbid, 


36  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

and  gives  an  air  of  vehemence  to  what  is  only 
hurry.  His  utterance  was  still  faulty.  A  friend 
who  knew  him  a  little  after  this  period  says,  that 
when  heated  by  argument,  his  ideas  seemed  to 
outstrip  his  power  of  expression ;  his  tongue 
appeared  too  large;  he  clipped  some  of  his 
vords  sadly ;  his  voice,  sweet  and  musical  in 
xmversation,  grew  loud  and  harsh,  his  articula- 
'.ion  rapid,  indistinct  and  imperfect.  With  these 
Advantages  and  defects,  such  as  they  were,  he 
was  to  begin  the  competitions  of  the  bar  in  a  part 
jf  the  country  where  he  was  quite  unknown,  and 
where  much  talent  had  preoccupied  the  ground 
with  experience  on  its  side,  and  acquaintance 
with  the  people  and  their  affairs.  There  is  no 
part  of  the  world  where,  more  than  in  Virginia 
these  embarrassments  would  be  lessened  to  i 
new  adventurer;  as  there  is  nowhere  a  mon 
ourteous  race  of  gentlemen,  accessible  to  the 
prepossessions  which  merit  excites.  There  wa& 
however  another  embarrassment;  our  lawyei 
had  no  cause  ;  but  he  encountered  here  a  young 
friend  much  in  the  same  circumstances,  but 
who  had  a  single  case,  which  he  proposed  to 
share  with  Wirt  as  the  means  of  making  a  joint 
debut ;  and  with  this  small  stock  in  trade,  they 
went  to  attend  the  first  county-court. 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  37 

Their  case  was  one  01  joint  assault  and  bat- 
tery, with  joint  judgmen'  against  three,  of  whom 
two  had  been  released  subsequently  to  the  judg- 
ment, and  the  third,  who  had  been  taken  in 
execution,  and  imprisoned,  claimed  the  benefit 
of  that  release  as  enuring  to  himself.  Under 
these  circumstances,  the  matter  of  discharge 
having  happened  since  the  judgment,  the  old 
remedy  was  by  the  writ  of  audita  querela.  But 
Mr.  Wirt  and  his  associate  had  learned  from 
their  Blackstone  that  the^indulgence  of  courts  in 
modern  times,  in  granting  summary  relief,  in 
such  ca.^es,  by  motion,  had,  in  a  great  measure, 
superseded  the  use  of  the  old  writ ;  and  accord- 
ingly presented  their  case  in  the  form  of  a  mo- 
tion. 

The  motion,  was  opened  by  Wirt's  friend,  with 
all  the  alarm  cf  a  first  essay.  The  bench  was 
then,  in  Virginia  county-courts,  composed  of  the 
ordinary  justices  of  the  peace ;  and  the  elder 
members  of  the  bar,  by  a  usage  the  more  neces- 
sary from  the  constitution  of  the  tribunal,  fre- 
quently interposed  as  amid  curice,  or  informers 
of  the  conscience  of  the  court.  It  appears  that 
an  the  case  being  opened,  some  of  these  custom- 
ary advisers  denied  that  a  release  to  one  after 
judgment  released  the  other,  and  they  denied  also 


38  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

the  propriety  of  the  form  of  proceeding.  The 
ire  of  our  beginner  was  kindled  by  this  reception 
of  his  friend,  and  by  this  voluntary  interference 
with  their  motion  ;  and,  when  he  came  to  reply, 
he  forgot  the  natural  alarms  of  the  occasion,  and 
maintained  his  point  with  recollection  and  firm- 
ness. This  awaked  the  generosity  of  an  elder 
member  of  the  bar,  a  person  of  consideration  in 
the  neighbourhood,  and  a  good  lawyer.  He 
stepped  in  as  an  auxiliary,  remarking  that  he 
also  was  amicus  curiq,  and  perhaps  as  much 
entitled  to  act  as  such,  as  others ;  in  which  ca- 
pacity he  would  state  his  conviction  of  the  pro- 
priety of  the  motion,  and  that  the  court  was  not 
at  liberty  to  disregard  it ;  adding  that  its  having 
come  from  a  new  quarter  gave  it  but  a  stronger 
claim  on  the  candour  and  urbanity  of  a  Virginian 
bar.  The  two  friends  carried  their  point  in 
triumph,  and  the  worthy  ally  told  his  brethren, 
in  his  plain  phrase,  that  they  had  best  make  fair 
weather  with  one  who  promised  to  be  "  a  thorn 
in  their  side."  The  advice  was,  we  dare  say, 
unnecessary.  The  bar  of  that  county  wanted 
neither  talent  nor  courtesy ;  and  the  champion 
having  vindicated  his  pretensions  to  enter  the 
lists,  was  thenceforward  engaged  in  many  a 
Courteous  "passage  at  arms." 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  39 

The  auxiliary  mentioned  in  the  above  anec- 
dote was  the  late  General  John  Miner,  of  Frede 
ricksburg,  of  whom  Mr.  Wirt,  in  subsequent 
years,  often  spoke  with  strong  gratitude  and 
esteem.  "  There  was  never,"  he  says,  "  a  more 
finished  and  engaging  gentleman,  nor  one  of  a 
more  warm,  honest,  and  affectionate  heart.  He 
was  as  brave  a  man,  %nd  as  true  a  patriot,  as 
ever  lived.  He  was  a  most  excellent  lawyer  too, 
with  a  most  persuasive  flow  of  eloquence,  simple 
natural,  graceful,  and  most  affecting  wherever  , 
there  was  room  for  pathos  ;  and  his  pathos  was 
not  artificial  rhetoric ;  it  was  of  that  true  sort 
which  flows  from  a  feeling  heart,  and  a  noble 
mind.  He  was  my  firm  and  constant  friend 
from  that  day  through  a  long  life ;  and  took 
occasion,  several  times  in  after  years,  to  remind 
i»e  of  his  prophecy,  and  to  insist  on  my  obliga- 
tion to  sustain  his  'prophetic  reputation.'  He 
left  a  large  and  most  respectable  family,  and 
lives  embalmed  in  the  hearts  of  all  who  knew 
him." 

In  a  year  or  two  he  extended  his  practice  to 
the  neighbouring  county  of  Altamarle,  where, 
in  the  spring  of  1795,  he  married  Mildred,  the 
eldest  daughter  of  Doctor  George  Gilmer,  and 
took  up  his  residence  at  Pen  Park,  the  seat  of 


40  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

that  gentleman,  near  Charlottesville.  The  family 
with  which  he  formed  this  connexion,  was  in 
the  first  rank  of  society,  a  condition  which  it 
adorned  with  substantial  excellence,  with  the 
graces  that  give  elegance  to  life,  and  with  a  full 
share  of  Virginian  hospitality.  His  father-in- 
law  was  among  the  most  eminent  physicians  of 
the  day,  but  not  more«distinguished  for  pro- 
fessional skill  than  for  his  classical  learning  and 
his  eloquence;  and  he  is  well  remembered  in 
Virginia  for  a  flow  of  pure,  natural  wit;  to 
which  he  added  the  higher  charm  of  warm  be- 
nevolence. Of  these  qualities  his  daughter  in- 
herited a  large  portion,  and  was  a  woman  of 
rare  endowments  both  of  mind  and  heart.  The 
removal  of  Mr.  Wirt  brought  him  into  a  very 
agreeable  and  desirable  neighbourhood,  and  in 
troduced  him  to  the  acquaintance  of  many  per 
sons  of  much  worth,  some  of  them  of  higb 
celebrity,  among  whom  it  is  sufficient  to  men 
tion  Mr.  Monroe  and  Mr.  Jefferson,  whose  cordia) 
friendship  he  gained  and  held  without  abatement 
to  the  end  of  their  lives.  Dr.  Gilmer  was  the 
intimate  friend  and  constant  associate  of  both 
these  gentlemen,  as  well  as  of  Mr.  Madison,  who 
lived  in  the  next  county,  and  was  in  the  habit 
of  visiting  Monticello  and  its  neighbourhood ;  and 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  41 

he  thus  brought  his  son-in-law  into  an  inter- 
course with  these  eminent  men.  Mr.  Wirt's 
serious  associations  in  life  have  been  of  this  uni- 
form stamp.  "Doctores  sapientiae  secutus  est, 
qui  sola  bona  quse  honesta,  mala  tantum  quae 
turpia."  It  was  here,  in  the  latter  part  of  1796, 
that  the  gentleman  to  whose  sketch  we  have 
mentioned  ourselves  to  be  indebted,  first  saw 
and  made  acquaintance  with  him.  He  had 
never,  he  says,  met  with  any  man  so  highly 
engaging  and  prepossessing.  His  figure  was 
strikingly  elegant  and  commanding,  with  a  face 
of  the  first  order  of  masculine  beauty,  animated, 
and  expressing  high  intellect.  His  manners 
took  the  tone  of  his  heart ;  they  were  frank, 
open  and  cordial ;  and  his  conversation,  to  which 
his  reading  and  early  pursuits  had  given  a  clas- 
sic tinge,  was  very  polished,  gay  and  witty. 
Altogether,  his  friend  adds,  he  was  a  most  fasci- 
nating companion,  and  to  those  of  his  own  age 
irresistibly  and  universally  winning.  This  was 
a  dangerous  eminence  to  one  of  his  social  turn 
and  mercurial  temperament,  as  the  young  and 
gay  sought  his  company  with  eagerness.  The 
intellectual  bias,  however,  was  that  which  pre- 
vailed, and  filled  his  hours  of  retirement  with 

befitting  studies.     He  read  and  wrote  constantly 
4* 


42  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

and  habitually,  earnestly  employing  the  periods 
thus  "  dedicate  to  closeness  and  the  bettering  of  his 
mind,"  in  studying  the  fathers  of  English  litera- 
ture. Bacon,  Boyle,  Locke,  Hooker  and  others,  with 
whose  works  the  excellent  library  of  Dr.  Gilmer 
abounded.  In  this  course  of  study  and  social 
enjoyment  interchanged,  his  mind  improved  by 
habitual  intercourse  with  men  who  were  already 
the  personages  of  history,  he  continued  to  reside 
at  Pen  Park,  practising  professionally  in  the  sur- 
rounding counties. 

His  business  was  rapidly  increasing,  and  he 
was  already  considered  as  well  one  of  the  best 
lawyers  in  the  circle  of  his  practice,  as  destined 
to  greater  eminence,  when,  in  September,  1799, 
he  lost  his  wife,  to  whom  he  was  tenderly  attach- 
ed, and  with  whom  he  had  lived  most  happily. 
Their  union  was  not  blessed  with  children. 
This  event  fell  heavily  on  his  spiiits,  and  broke 
in,  for  a  time,  on  his  professional  occupations 
and  aims;  and  with  a  view,  we  believe,  to 
diverting  his  chagrin  by  change  of  scene,  his 
friends  urged  him  to  allow  himself  to  be  nomi 
nated  in  the  next  election  of  Clerk  of  the  House 
of  Delegates.  This  was  pressed  also  by  several 
members  of  influence  in  the  House.  He  con- 
sented, and  was  elected.  The  duties  of  this 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  43 

office  occupied  only  a  few  of  the  winter  months. 
A  respectable  salary  was  attached  to  it?  and  it 
had  been  held  by  several  persons  of  character 
and  celebrity, — by  John  Randolph,  by  his  son 
Edmund,  and  by  Wythe,  the  venerable  Chan- 
cellor of  Virginia.  It  brought  him  into  familial- 
intercourse  with  another  circle  of  the  active  and 
vigorous  minds  of  the  state,  among  them  many 
choice,  gay  spirits,  to  whom  the  wit  and  other 
fascinations  of  the  new  clerk  carried  their  usual 
allurement.  His  immediate  predecessor,  John 
Stewart,  of  witty  memory,  had  been  displaced 
from  political  considerations,  the  republican  party 
having  just  gained  the  ascendency.  It  was  a 
oeriod  of  great  political  excitement  in  Virginia. 
The  celebrated  "Resolutions  of  1798"  in  relation 
to  the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws,  had  been  passed 
in  the  Assembly  the  preceding  year,  and  the 
ensuing  session  of  the  legislature  was  expected 
with  unusual  interest  by  both  the  parties  into 
which  the  fundamental  constitutional  questions 
that  had  by  that  time  taken  body  and  shape,  had 
divided  not  the  state  only,  but  the  whole  Union. 
The  illustrious  Patrick  Henry,  who  in  this  ques- 
tion took  side  with  the  general  government,  had 
been  elected  to  the  House  of  Delegates,  and 
suitable  preparation  was  made  to  oppose  in  that 


44  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

assembly  an  adversary  who,  though  infirm  with 
age  and  disease,  was  still  regarded  as  formidable. 
Mr.  Madison,  Mr.  Giles,  Mr.  Taylor  of  Carolina, 
and  Mr  Nicholas,  were  arrayed  against  the  vete- 
ran, who  never  came,  however,  to  the  conflict. 
His  death,  which  happened  not  long  before  the 
session  of  the  Assembly,  disappointed  Mr.  Wirt 
of  seeing  the  subject  of  his  future  biography,  and 
left  him  to  paint  the  picture  from  tradition,  to 
which  his  actual  contemplation  of  the  man 
might  haye  given  its  most  characteristic  touches. 
He  held  the  post  of  Clerk,  by  two  succeeding 
elections,  till  February,  1802.  In  the  mean 
time  he  did  not  wholly  relinquish  his  practice, 
and  volunteered,  in  1800,  as  counsel  for  the 
accused  in  the  trial  of  Callender,  whose  prosecu- 
tion makes  such  a  figure  in  the  domestic  political 
history  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Wirt,  it  may 
be  remembered  from  a  popular  anecdote,  did  not 
escape  his  share  of  the  judicial  asperities  which 
gave  such  offence  to  Callender's  counsel,  and 
•afterward  made  part  of  the  charges  in  the  im- 
peachment of  the  judge.  The  latter  appears  to 
have  appreciated  his  equableness  of  temper  and 
manners.  During  the  trial  or  shortly  after  it, 
meeting  the  father  of  Mr.  Wirt's  second  wife,  he 
asked  after  his  son-in-law  with  some  marks  of 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  45 

regard.  "  They  did  not  summon  him?  he 
observed,  "on  my  trial;  had  I  known  it,  I  might 
have  summoned  him  myself;  yet  it  was  only  to 
that  young  man  I  said  any  thing  exceptionable, 
or  which  I  have  thought  of  with  regret  since." 
On  the  fourth  of  July,  1800,  Mr.  Wirt  was 
selected  by  the  democratic  party  at  Richmond, 
to  pronounce  the  anniversary  oration.  This 
brief  composition,  which  we  have  seen,  is  fervid 
and  rapid,  and  has  so  unpremeditated  an  air, 
and  was  pronounced,  we  have  heard,  so  little 
like  other  prepared  orations,  as  to  have  been 
thought  extemporary. 

In  1802  the  legislature  of  Virginia  gave  him 
an  unexpected  proof  of  its  confidence  and  esteem. 
It  was  found  necessary  at  this  time  to  divide  the 
business  of  the  court  of  Chancery,  in  which  Mr. 
Wythe  then  presided,  a  man  of  the  deepest 
learning,  and  the  best  civilian  that  ever  appeared 
in  that  state.  Of  three  chancery  districts  now 
created,  Mr.  Wirt  was  appointed  Chancellor  of 
the  eastern,  comprehending  the  Eastern  Shore 
of  Virginia,  and  all  the  counties  below  Richmond. 
This  appointment  was  wholly  unexpected  to 
him  till  the  very  moment  before  the  election 
came  on  in  th^  House  of  Delegates,  and  his  first 
notice  of  it,  we  believe,  was  his  being  requested 


46  BIOGRAPHY   OF 

by  his  friends  to  withdraw  till  the  nomination 
should  be  made,  and  the  votes  taken.  Sensible 
of  the  gravity  of  the  trust,  he  went,  even  after 
the  election,  to  Mr.  Monroe,  then  governor  of 
Virginia,  to  express  an  apprehension  of  its  un- 
guitableness  to  either  his  years  or  attainments. 
Mr.  Monroe  replied  that  the  legislature,  he 
doubted  not,  knew  very  well  what  it  was  doing, 
and  that  it  was  not  probable  he  would  disappoint 
either  it  or  the  suitors  in  the  court.  Mr.  Wirt 
was  then  but  twenty-nine  years  of  age,  and  his 
appointment  to  a  court  whose  jurisdiction  in- 
volves important  interests,  and  requires  weight 
of  character,  and  integrity,  as  much  as  extensive 
attainments,  was  an  emphatic  mark  of  considera- 
tion from  men  who,  from  his  post  of  Clerk  to 
the  House,  had  opportunities  of  knowing  him 
more  than  usually  familiar.  The  duties  of  the 
chancellorship  called  him  to  reside  at  Williams- 
burg,  where  he  presided  in  his  court  with  in- 
dustry and  ability,  and  with  equal  satisfaction  to 
counsel  and  parties.  In  the  autumn  of  the  same 
year  he  married  Elizabeth,  a  daughter  of  the 
late  Colonel  Gamble,  of  Richmond ;  an  esti- 
mable lady,  still  living,  in  the  bosom  of  a  large 
family  of  sons  and  daughters. 

This  marriage  led  to  his  resignation  of  the 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  47 

chancellorship,  and  his  resumption  of  the  prac- 
tice of  law.  The  salary  was  inadequate  to  sup- 
port a  family;  but  other  considerations  probably 
corduced  to  this  step.  Emulation  ;r  not  extinct 
at  thirty,  and  a  more  stirring  scene  of  action  was 
perhaps  more  agreeable  io  his  temperament.  In 
the  first  instance  he  designed  a  removal  to  Ken- 
tucky, and  had  even  made  some  preparations 
with  that  view.  But  Mr.  Tazewell,  who  then 
resided  at  Norfolk,  earnestly  urged  him  on  the 
contrary  to  remove  thither,  and  enforced  his 
advice  with  many  friendly  representations  and 
offers.  We  believe  it  was  chiefly  owing  to  the 
influence  of  this  gentleman,  then  already  emi 
nent  in  the  profession  which  he  adorns,  that  Mr. 
Wirt  abandoned  his  design  of  going  to  the  west, 
and  went,  in  the  whiter  of  1803 — 4,  to  reside  at 
Norfolk. 

Just  after  his  resigning  the  chancellorship,  he 
was  employed,  together  with  Mr.  Tazewell  and 
Mr.  Seraple,  afterward  Judge  Semple,  hi  the 
defence  of  a  man  apprehended  and  tried  on  some 
points  of  circumstantial  evidence  so  curious,  that 
we  are  tempted  to  relate  them.  A  person  named 
St.  George,  who  resided  near  Williamsburg,  was 
shot  dead  one  night  through  the  window  of  his 
own  house.  No  trace  appeared  of  the  assassin, 


48  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

nor  any  circumstances  that  could  indicate  his 
enemy;  only  some  duck-shot  appeared  in  the 
wall,  near  the  deiling.  While  the  crowd  called 
out  by  the  scene,  stood  confounded  around  the 
dead  body,  a  bystander,  who  had  been  employed 
by  the  late  Chancellor,  a  person  remarkable  to 
some  degree  of  oddity  for  his  habits  of  close  and 
curious  investigation,  went  out  of  the  house,  and 
placing  himself  in  the  line  of  direction  that  the 
shot  must  have  taken  to  the  spot  where  they 
lodged,  endeavoured  to  ascertain  from  that  cir- 
cumstance the  exact  position  of  the  person 
who  discharged  the  gun.  While  thus  occupied, 
his  eye  was  caught  by  a  very  small  piece  of 
paper  on  the  ground  betwixt  himself  and  the 
window,  which  appeared,  on  taking  up,  to' have 
been  part  of  the  wadding,  and  had  on  it  what 
seemed  to  be  two  of  the  three  strokes  composing 
the  letter  m.  One  of  the  crowd  exclaimed  at 
this  moment,  "I  wonder  where  Shannon  is; 
has  any  one  seen  Shannon?"  Shannon  was 
the  son-in-law  of  the  deceased,  and  resided  on 
the  opposite  shore  of  the  James  river;  and  it 
was  soon  ascertained  that  he  had  been  seen  in 
Williamsburg  that  day,  with  a  gun  on  his  shoul- 
der. The  gun,  however,  had  no  cock  upon  it, 
and  a  blacksmith  to  whom  he  had  gone  to  have  it 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  49 

repaired,  stated  that  Shannon  had  left  his  woik- 
shop  with  it  in  this  condition.  The  man  was 
pursued,  nevertheless,  over  the  river,  and  to  his 
own  house,  to  which  he  was  found  not  to  have 
returned ;  and  was  traced  at  length  to  a  tavern, 
some  thirty  miles  off,  and  caught  in  bed  with  all 
his  clothes  on,  sound  asleep.  He  was  seized  as 
he  lay,  and  on  being  searched,  some  duck  shot 
was  found  about  him,  and  a  letter,  with  part  of 
it  torn  off.  When  this  letter  was  afterward  com- 
pared with  the  fragment  of  the  wadding,  the 
two  were  found  to  fit,  and  the  letter  m}  before 
mentioned,  to  form  part  of  the  word  my  in  the 
letter.  On  these  circumstances,  strengthened 
by  the  fact  that  the  death  of  his  father-in-law 
would  have  put  Shannon  in  possession  of  his 
wife's  fortune,  he  was  brought  to  trial.  A  single 
juryman  "  stood  out,"  as  the  phrase,  is,  for  ten 
days,  and  the  defendant  was  discharged  in  con- 
sequence of  this  disagreement  among  his  triers. 
No  other  circumstances  ever  threw  light  on  the 
truth  of  this  transaction.  Some  person,  struck 
with  Mr.  Wirt's  defence  in  the  case,  and  having 
a  remarkable  memory,  afterward  repeated  it  with 
little  variation. 

It  was  immediately  before  his  removal  to  Nor 
folk  that  Mr.  Wirt  wrote  the  letters  published  in 


50  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

the  Richmond  Argus  under  the  title  of  "  The 
British  Spy,"  which  form  part  of  the  present 
volume.  They  were  composed  in  a  great  de- 
gree for  diversion  of  mind,  with  little  care,  and 
with  still  less  expectation  of  the  favourable 
reception  they  met  at  the  time,  or  of  the  popu- 
larity they  retained  afterward.  They  have  since 
been  collected  into  a  small  volume,  of  which  the 
present  is  the  tenth  edition.  The  sketches  of 
living  characters  were  received  with  a  good  deal 
of  curiosity  by  the  public,  and  are  probably 
faithful  pictures. 

At  Norfolk  he  found  for  competitors  the  Taze- 
wells,  the  Taylors,  the  Neversons  and  others, 
men  in  the  first  rank  of  their  profession,  who  at 
that  time  adorned  its  bar.  In  a  commercial 
place  too,  whose  foreign  commerce  was  then  very 
extensive,  the  questions  most  abundant  before 
the  courts  were  those  of  maritime  law,  to  which 
in  the  theatre  of  his  former  practice  he  had  been 
wholly  a  stranger,  but  to  which  he  now  applied 
himself  with  that  indefatigable  labour  of  which 
few  men  are  more  capable.  There  are  no  more 
willing  witnesses  than  his  opponents,  of  his 
learning,  and  vigorous  conduct  of  his  causes, 
and,  consequently,  his  rapid  rise  in  the  public 
esteem.  He  continued  to  practise  in  Norfolk 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  51 

and  in  the  courts  of  the  surrounding  counties  till 
1806,  when  he  once  more  changed  his  residence 
to  Richmond,  solicited  to  k  by  his  family  and 
friends,  who  conceived  that  he  would  find  tht^e 
a  wider  and  more  lucrative  professional  field. 
In  this  city  he  remained  till  hi§  appointment  to 
the  Attorney-Generalship  of  the  United  States. 

Among  the  names  which  then  gave  remarka- 
ble celebrity  to  the  Richmond  bar,  were  those 
of  Edmund  Randolph,  John  Wickham,  Daniel 
Call,  George  Hay,  and  George  Keith  Taylor, 
not  to  mention  several  others  who  mingled  their 
rays  in  what  was  quite  a  constellation  of  legal 
learning  and  talents.  If  the  competitions  of 
such  a  theatre  required  all  his  resources,  they 
were  also  of  a  nature  to  fashion  and  strengthen 
them.  The  sphere  of  his  business  and  his  repu- 
tation enlarged  according  to  the  expectation  of 
his  friends.  He  was  often  called  into  distant 
parts  of  the  country  both  in  criminal  and  great 
civil  causes,  and  in  the  course  of  a  various  prac- 
tice of  more  than  ten  years,  with  men  of  abilities 
as  various,  he  rose  in  the  general  opinion  to  a 
level  with  the  first  of  them.  He  seems  at  no 
point  of  his  career,  nor  in  any  of  the  different 
scenes  to  which  it  was  successively  transferred, 
to  have  encountered  the  neglects  which  con- 


62  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

epicuous  talent  has  often  had  to  struggle  with  in 
its  outset.  In  more  than  one  instance  we  have 
seen  that  the  esteem  of  others  anticipated  his 
own  modesty.  We  are  little  disposed  to  attribute 
to  accident  any  permanent  success  or  popularity, 
though  the  reader's  recollection  may  furnish  him 
with  one  or  more  striking  examples  to  the  con- 
trary. However  this  may  be  in  political  life,  or 
in  other  branches  of  affairs,  "  it  is  not  at  the  bar, 
at  least,"  as  Mr.  Pinkney  used  to  say,  perhaps 
with  some  conscious  triumph,  "that  a  man  can 
acquire  or  preserve  a  false  and  fraudulent  repu- 
tation for  talents."  Fortune,  indeed,  as  is  com- 
monly said,  is  wont  to  smile  upon  such  as  know 
how  to  make  a  discreet  use  of  her  favours. 

A  fortunate  occasion  of  this  sort,  for  his  pro- 
fessional fame,  occurred  in  the  year  following 
his  removal  to  Richmond,  when  the  celebrated 
trial  of  Aaron  Burr  took  place  in  that  city,  on  a 
charge  which,  deeply  moving  the  interest  and 
passions  of  the  whole  nation,  made  familiar  with 
every  person  who  could  read  a  newspaper,  all 
the  parties  and  actors  in  the  cause.  This  trial 
commenced  in  the  winter  of  1807,  and  Mr. 
Wirt  was  retained,  under  the  direction  of  Presi- 
dent Jefferson,  to  aid  the  Attorney  for  the  United 
States  in  the  prosecution.  We  believe  it  was 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  53 

designed  to  engage  him  on  the  side  of  the  prose- 
cuted ;  but  Mr.  Wirt  was  absent  from  Richmond 
at  the  moment,  and  no  application  was  made  to 
him. 

Few  trials  in  any  country  ever  excited  a 
greater  sensation  than  this.  The  crime  imputed 
was  of  the  deepest  guilt;  the  accused,  a  per- 
son of  the  highest  eminence  both  for  talents  and 
political  station,  having  but  lately  occupied  the 
second  post,  with  pretensions  to  the  first,  in  the 
country  the  government  of  which  he  was  charged 
with  a  design  to  subvert.  Conspicuous  persons 
were  implicated  in  the  supposed  plot ;  and  the 
party  violence  which  marked  the  period,  mingled 
itself  in  the  opposite  opinions  which  the  transac- 
tions themselves  might  naturally  create.  Public 
attention  was  consequently  fixed  with  eager 
curiosity  on  every  step  of  the  trial,  and  the  eoun 
sel,  the  bench,  and  the  government,  scanned  the 
proceedings  with  the  most  inquisitive  scrutiny. 
The  overt  act  of  treason  being  charged. to  have 
been  committed  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
circuit  court  for  the  District  of  Virginia,  the  trial 
was  brought  by  this  circumstance  to  the  city  of 
Richmond,  whose  bar  we  have  already  men- 
tioned to  have  been  adorned  by  some  of  the  first 
men  of  the  profession.  The  defence,  which  was 


54  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

conducted  by  some  of  the  most  conspicuous  of 
these,  derived  additional  aid  from  the  legal  learn 
nig  of  Luther  Martin,  who  was  familiarly  called 
in  his  native  state,  "the  law-leger,"  and  not  a 
little  from  the  legal  acumen  of  the  accused  him 
self,  whose  great  talents  did  not  desert  him  on 
this  occasion.  A  judge  presided  at  the  tribunal, 
on  whose  intellectual  vigour  and  moral  dignity, 
time  and  long  trial  have  conferred  a  character  of 
grandeur.  The  court  was  incessantly  thronged 
with  earnest  spectators  and  hearers,  both  from 
Virginia  and  other  states,  many  of  them  enlight- 
ened and  conspicuous  men.  It  is  evident  that 
this  was  not  a  theatre  where,  in  the  language  of 
Mr.  Pinkney,  a  spurious  reputation  could  be 
supported,  as,  on  the  other  hand,  it  gave  scope 
to  the  greatest  reach  of  abilities.  It  is  justly 
remarked  by  the  reporter,  a  competent  judge, 
that  "perhaps  no  trial  for  treason  has  taken 
place  in  any  country,  in  which  more  ability, 
learning,  ingenuity  and  eloquence  were  displayed. 
All  the  important  decisions  on  treason  in  Eng- 
land and  this  country,  were  acutely  and  tho- 
roughly examined,  and  their  application  tc 
questions  before  the  court  discussed  with  great 
ingenuity  and  skill ;  nor  was  less  industry  or 
'udgment  shown  in  arguing  the  application  and 


WILLIAM  WIRT.  56 

etfect  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  of  the  common  law,  if  it  existed  at  all  as  a 
law  of  the  Union."  The  encomium  of  the  Chief 
Justice  is.as  emphatic,  and  more  authoritative. 
"  The  question,"  says  he,  (speaking  of  one  of 
the  principal  arguments  before  the  court,)  "  has 
been  argued  in  a  manner  worthy  of  its  import- 
ance. A  degree  of  eloquence  seldom  displayed 
on  any  occasion,  ha's  embellished  solidity  of 
argument  and  depth  of  research." 

In  a  cause  so  vigorously  urged  and  defended 
Mr.  Wirt  enhanced  and  extended  into  every  pare 
of  the  country,  a  reputation  which  is  seldom 
attained  at  thirty-five.  His  principal  speech, 
which  occupied  four  hours,  was  replete  through- 
out with  a  creative  fancy,  polished  wit,  keen 
repartee,  or  logical  reasoning ;  it  is  especially 
marked  by  that  comprehensiveness  of  thought 
which  "  travels  beyond  the  record,"  and  brings 
illustrations,  analogies  and  aid  from  universa/ 
reason  and  abstract  truth.  This  diffuses  a  dig- 
nity and  force  over  the  production  which  his 
technical  learning,  which  is  abundant  and  apt, 
could  not  have  bestowed  alone.  The  diction 
is  chaste,  never  redundant;  and  he  here  displays 

conspicuously  that  lucid  order  which  is  perhaps 
the  most  remarkable  quality  of  his  eloquence ; 


66  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

the  texture  of  the  whole  oration  happily  show- 
ing that  in  this  sense  the  saying  of  Seneca  is 
untrue,  "  Non  est  ornamentum  virile,  concinni- 
tas."  One  well-known  popular  passage  in  this 
speech  has  shared  the  fate  of  many  a  classic 
page,  of  palling  by  familiar  repetition. 

But  we  might  quote  several  others  as  very 
happy  examples  of  oratorical  skill ;  the  exordium, 
in  which  he  repels  the  charge  repeatedly  urged, 
of  personality  and  persecution  to  the  accused  j 
and  the  passage  hi  which  he  describes  the  rhe- 
torical arts  employed  against  him  by  the  opposite 
counsel,  Mr.  Wickham.  In  his  argument  on 
the  motion  to  commit  Burr  and  others  for  trial 
in  Kentucky,  a  vein  of  ridicule  enlivens  and 
enforces  the  reasoning  into  which  the  picture  of 
the  blasted  ambition  and  daring  despair  of  Burr 
is  inwoven  with  great  effect. 

We  may  add,  in  taking  leave  of  this  cele- 
brated cause,  that  the  excitements  of  the  period 
which  gave  it  so  much  of  its  interest  with  the 
public,  elicited  from  the  counsel  themselves  some- 
thing more  than  the  ordinary  keenness  of  foren- 
sic debate.  Readiness,  firmness,  and  a  large 
portion  of  that  civic  courage  which  is  perhaps  the 
most  commanding  quality  of  mind,  were  perpet- 
ually struck  out  in  a  proceeding  m  which  the 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  57 

whole  public  erected  itself  into  a  tribunal,  or 
rather  took  sides  with  all  the  eagerness  of  par- 
tisans. 

In  1808,  Mr.  Wirt  was  elected,  without  any 
canvass  on  his  part,  a  member  of  the  Virginia 
House  of  Delegates  for  the  city  of  Richmond. 
This  was  the  first  and  last  time  he  ever  sat  in 
any  legislative  body,  preferring  the  more  con- 
genial or  more  necessary  pursuits  of  his  profes- 
sion, from  which  neither  his  popularity  nor  the 
suggestions  of  those  who  thought  they  saw  in 
politics  a  more  conspicuous  theatre  of  action, 
prevailed  on  him  to  withdraw.  He  was  one  of 
the  special  committee  appointed  by  the  House  of 
Delegates  in  that  session,  to  whom  were  referred 
certain  resolutions  touching  our  foreign  relations, 
and  the  measures  of  administration  which  grew 
out  of  them  at  that  exceedingly  embarrassing 
and  critical  period.  The  report  of  the  committee 
is  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Wirt.  It  reviews  ener- 
getically and  impartially  the  measures  of  the  twc 
belligerents,  the  French  edicts  and  the  British 
orders  in  council,  and  comments  indignantly  on 
the  tone  of  the  British  diplomacy  towards  Ame- 
rica, especially  on  the  impertinent  and  insulting 
discrimination  of  Mr.  Canning  between  the  peo- 
ple of  this  country  and  their  government.  The 


68  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

report  vindicates  the  measures  of  Mr.  Jefferson's 
administration  in  this  crisis,  and  urges  the  sup- 
port of  them  on  the  nation.  In  the  preceding 
July  he  was  one  of  a  committee  appointed  by 
"  the  Friends  of  the  Manufacturing  Association" 
of  Virginia,  to  prepare  an  address  to  the  people 
of  the  state.  This  paper,  which  was  published 
in  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  reviews  the  above 
mentioned  measures  of  the  belligerents,  and 
deduces  from  their  unhappy  operation  on  our 
commerce  the  necessity  of  fostering  domestic 
manufactures,  to  which  it  argues  that  the  capital, 
resources  and  mechanical  skill  of  the  country 
were  entirely  adequate. 

In  the  same  year,  1808,  he  wrote  the  essays 
in  the  Enquirer  signed  "  One  of  the  People," 
addressed  to  the  members  of  Congress  who  had 
joined  in  a  protest  against  the  nomination  of 
Mr.  Madison  to  the  presidency.  In  these  he 
pourtrays  the  character  and  services  of  that  ven- 
erable statesman  with  a  warmth  and  emphasis 
which,  now  that  time  has  mellowed  the  asperity 
of  the  period,  and  the  illustrious  sage  of  the  con- 
stitution reposes  in  honoured  retirement,  one  won- 
ders to  think  should  ever  have  been  necessary. 

It  must  be  the  sentiment  of  all  good  natures, 
in  reviewing  this  and  similar  periods  of  political 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  59 

heats — when  their  eager  contentious  have  lost 
their  edge,  and  when  so  many  of  the  acutest 
and  ablest  minds  find  in  the  opposite  opinions  so 
keenly  maintained,  so  much  to  be  modified, 
explained  or  reconciled — to  retrace  their  whole 
career  with  some  humility  on  their  own  part, 
and  great  indulgence  to  contemporary  actors. 
Of  this  feeling  we  hardly  know  a  stronger  and 
more  affecting  instance  than  in  the  two  illustri- 
ous sages  of  Monticello  and  Q-uincy ;  nor  one 
that  reads  a  more  salutary  and  magnanimous 
lesson  to  the  fierce  rivalries  of  politicians.  It  can- 
not be  doubted  that  the  same  sentiment  which,  in 
the  meditative  period  of  life,  approached  to  each 
other,  these  leaders  and  idols  of  two  parties  so 
earnest  and  so  angry,  must  be  shared  in  a  large 
degree  by  the  subordinate  actors  in  the  conten- 
tious scene.  Such,  at  least,  we  believe  to  be  the 
view  which  all  better  spirits  cast  back  on  this 
period  of  our  domestic  politics,  when,  indeed,  our 
foreign  relations  were  so  perplexing  and  pro- 
voking as  unavoidably  to  sharpen  the  bitterness 
of  other  dissensions.  In  reviewing  these  scenes, 
the  author  of  the  Life  of  Patrick  Henry  holds 
this  candid  language : 

"  It  is  not  my  function  to  decide  between  these  parties ; 
nor  do  I  feel  myself  qualified  for  such  an  office.    I  have  lived 


60  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

too  near  the  times,  and  am  conscious  of  having  been  too 
Btrangly  excited  by  the  feelings  of  the  day,  to  place  myself 
in  the  chair  of  the  arbiter.  It  would,  indeed,  be  no  difficult 
task  to  present,  under  the  engaging  air  of  historic  candour, 
the  arguments  on  one  side  in  an  attitude  so  bold  and  com- 
manding, and  to  exhibit  those  on  the  other  under  a  form  so 
faint  and  shadowy,  arj  to  beguile  the  reader  into  the  adoption 
of  my  own  opinions.  But  this  would  be  unjust  to  the  oppo- 
site party,  and  a  disingenuous  abuse  of  the  confidence  of  the 
reader.  Let  us  then  remit  the  question  to  the  historian  of 
future  ages;  who,  if  the  particular  memory  of  the  past  times 
shall  not  be  lost  in  those  great  events  which  seem  preparing 
for  the  nation,  will  probably  decide  that,  as  in  most  family 
quarrels,  both  parties  have  been  somewhat  in  the  wrong." 

In  his  discourse  on  the  death  of  Adams  and 
Jefferson,  he  puts  this  subject  in  a  still  more 
amiable  and  interesting  point  of  light.  The 
orator  says, — 

"  There  was  one  solace  of  the  declining  years  of  both  these 
great  men,  which  must  not  be  passed.  It  is  that  correspond- 
ence which  arose  between  them,  after  their  retirement  from 
public  life.  That  correspondence,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  be 
given  to  the  world.  If  it  ever  shall,  I  speak  from  knowledge 
when  I  say,  it  will  be  found  to  be  one  of  the  most  interesting 
and  affecting  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  That  "cold 
cloud"  which  had  hung  for  a  time  over  their  friendship, 
passed  away  with  the  conflict  out  of  which  it  had  grown,  and 
the  attachment  of  their  early  life  returned  in  all  its  force. 
They  had  both  now  bid  adieu,  a  final  adieu,  to  all  public 
employments,  and  were  done  with  all  the  agitating  passions 
of  life.  They  were  dead  to  the  ambitious  world ;  and  this  cor- 
respondence resembles,  more  than  any  thing  else,  one  of  those 


WILLIAM    W1RT.  61 

conversations  in  the  Elysium  of  the  ancients,  which  the 
shades  of  the  departed  great  were  supposed  by  them  to  hold 
with  regard  to  the  affairs  of  the  world  they  had  left.  There 
are  the  same  playful  allusions  to  the  points  of  difference  that 
had  divided  their  parties ;  the  same  mutual,  and  light,  and 
unimpassioned  raillery  on  their  own  past  misconceptions 
and  mistakes;  the  same  mutual  and  just  admiration  and 
respect  for  their  many  virtues  and  services  to  mankind. 
That  correspondence  was  to  them  both,  one  of  the  most 
genial  employments  of  their  old  age ;  and  it  reads  a  lesson 
of  wisdom  on  the  bitterness  of  party  spirit,  by  which  the 
wise  and  the  good  will  not  fail  to  profit." 

But  this  candid  mood  was  far  from  prevail- 
ing at  the  period  which  we  have  reached  in  this 
biographical  sketch.  Questions  of  portentous 
magnitude  agitated  the  nation,  and  cafled  forth 
no  less  passion  than  talent.  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
just  about  to  leave  the  Presidential  chair ;  under 
Mr.  Madison  who  was  to  succeed  him,  the  same 
policy  was  to  be  pursued,  and  the  same  strenuous 
opposition  to  be  anticipated.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, when  honest  men  of  both  sides 
naturally  looked  about  for  the  most  capable 
agents — with  the  high  confidence  of  his  party, 
and  with  abilities  that  might  have  led  him  to 
any  political  distinctions — Mr.  Wirt,  however 
interested  in  the  questions  of  the  times,  and  with 
a  large  knowledge  of  them  derived  from  his 
familiarity  with  the  events  and  actors,  declined 


62  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

to  abandon  the  path  of  professional  life.  Though 
urged  to  it  by  such  as  could  the  most  cornpe^ 
tently  estimate  both  the  turn  of  his  genius  and 
the  value  of  his  services  to  the  public,  he  seems 
sedulously  to  have  constrained  himself  from  this 
bustling  field  within  the  calmer  region  of  an 
intellectual  pursuit,  undazzled  by  the  prospect 
of  popular  honours,  though  no  man  feels  more 
the  sting  of  a  laudable  ambition.  Of  those  who 
saw  in  his  capacity  a  broad  foundation  for  fame 
in  this  new  department  of  affairs,  was  his  friend 
Mr.  Jefferson,  who,  about  the  time  of  his  own 
retirement,  in  language  equally  complimental 
of  Mr.  Wirt,  and  indicative  of  his  profound 
interest  in  the  crisis  approaching  under  his  suc- 
cessor, pointed  out  to  him  this  career  as  equally 
worthy  of  his  ambition  and  advantageous  to  the 
public,  and  one  of  which  he  might  expect  to 
bear  off  the  first  honours.  His  expressions  de- 
note as  large  a  share  of  admiration  and  esteem 
as  the  ambition  of  any  man  can  desire.  One 
of  the  fcist  acts,  indeed,  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  life  waa 
an  offer  to  Mr.  Wirt  on  the  part  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Virginia,  accompanied  by  some  circum- 
stances that  particularly  evinced  the  respect  he 
was  held  in  by  himself  and  the  rest  of  that 
body. 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  63 

From  this  period,  therefore,  till  1817,  Mr. 
Wirt  continued  to  practise  law  in  Richmond  and 
its  vicinity,  and  we  have  little  to  record  of  the 
interval  except  his  increasing  reputation.  Du- 
ring this  period  he  gained  several  suits  of  par- 
ticular celebrity  and  interest.  In  1812  he  wrote 
the  series  of  papers  entitled  "The  Old  Bachelor." 
They  were  originally  published  in  the  Rich- 
mond Enquirer,  and  have  since,  in  a  collected 
form,  passed  through  several  editions.  They 
are  now  republished,  for  the  fourth  time,  in  the 
ensuing  volumes.  It  would  appear  from  the 
second  number,  that  the  immediate  occasion 
of  them  was  the  review  of  Ashe's  Travels  in 
America,  in  the  thirtieth  number  of  the  Edin- 
burgh Review  ;  a  well  known  scandalous  libel 
on  American  institutions,  manners  and  literature 
in  a  periodical  whose  flippancy  often  exceeded 
even  its  wit.  There  were  various  contributors  ; 
but  much  the  larger  part  of  the  papers  were  fur- 
nished by  Mr.  Wirt,  and,  like  those  in  the  Spy, 
were  hastily  thrown  together  in  brief  hours  of 
relaxation. 

The  "Life  of  Patrick  Henry,"  a  work  con- 
templated for  some  years,  but  put  aside  by  pro- 
fessional pursuits,  and  eventually  completed 
amidst  the  incessant  hurry  of  them,  was  pub- 


64  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

lished  in  September,  1817.  This  is  the  longest, 
and,  judging  by  its  whole  effect  on  the  reader, 
the  best  of  Mr.  Wirt's  literary  productions.  Mr. 
Jefferson's  praise  of  it  is  the  justest,  and  perhaps 
the  best  an  author  can  desire;  that  "those  who 
take  up  the  book  will  find  they  cannot  lay  it 
down,  and  this  will  be  its  best  criticism."  Though 
not  included  in  the  present  publication,  we  have 
some  observations  to  make  hereafter  on  this 
work.  It  had  an  extensive  circulation,  which 
would  have  been  greater  yet  but  for  circum- 
stances having  no  connexion  with  its  popularity 
or  literary  merit.  In  1816  he  was  appointed,  by 
Mr.  Madison,  the  Attorney  of  the  United  States 
for  the  District  of  Virginia,  and  in  the  autumn 
of  the  following  year,  by  Mr.  Monroe,  Attorney- 
General  of  the  United  States.  Both  these  ap- 
pointments were  unsolicited  and  unexpected  by 
him.  In  consequence  of  the  latter,  he  removed 
in  the  winter  of  1817-18  to  Washington.  • 

At  the  bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  he  found  the 
highest  forensic  theatre  in  the  country,  and  per- 
haps there  never  was  one  in  any  country  that 
presented  a  more  splendid  array  of  learning  and 
talents  conjoined.  In  the  causes,  too,  which  it 
is  the  official  duty  of  the  Attorney-General  to 
prosecute  or  defend,  the  most  conspicuous  coun 


VTlLLIAM    WIRT.  65 

sel  of  that  bar  are  commonly  combined  against 
him.  In  how  many  conflicts  he  sustained  these 
odds  against  him,  with  a  vigour  always  adequate 
to  the  occasion,  is  very  well  known  to  those  who 
are  familiar  with  our  judicial  history.  The 
office  of  Attorney-General  he  held  twelve  years, 
through  the  entire  administrations  of  Mr.  Monroe 
and  Mr.  Adams, — longer  by  many  years  than 
it  has  ever  been  held  by  any  other ;  and  in  this 
post,  always  arduous,  his  labours  seem  much  to 
have  surpassed  those  of  his  predecessors.  Scarcely 
any  of  them  resided  at  Washington,  nor  did  they 
act  as  members  of  the  cabinet.  They  left  no 
written  precedents  nor  opinions,  nor  any  other 
trace  of  their  official  course,  to  aid  their  successors. 
Mr.  Wirt,  on  the  contrary,  left  behind  him  three 
large  volumes  of  official  opinions.  His  practice 
soon  became  large  in  the  Supreme  Court,  and  with 
it  his  celebrity  as  a  profound  jurist  no  less  than  an 
orator  of  the  first  rank  of  his  contemporaries.  A 
friend  has  remarked  of  him  that  his  diligent 
labour  well  deserved  this  success.  "  He  was 
always,"  he  says,  "a  man  of  labour;  occasionally 
of  most  intense  and  unremitting  labour.  He  was 
the  most  improving"  man,  also,  I  ever  knew ; 
for  I  can  truly  say  that  I  never  heard  him  speak 
after  any  length  of  time,  without  being  surprised 


66  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

and  delighted  at  his  improvement  both  in  man- 
ner and  substance."  This  testimony  of  an  old 
intimate,  a  man  of  parts  and  discernment,  is 
quoted  as  well  for  the  praise  it  conveys,  as  in 
proof  of  the  unrelaxing  toil  by  which  men  must 
gain  judicial  eminence.  Mr.  Pinkney  was  to 
the  end  of  his  days  a  model  of  this  indefatigable 
labour,  and  died,  as  it  were,  in  the  very  act  of 
struggle. 

At  the  close  of  Mr.  Adams's  administration, 
Mr.  Wirt,  having  resigned  the  Attorney-Gene- 
ralship, removed  to  Baltimore,  where  he  now 
resides.  He  had  been  previously  selected  by  the 
citizens  of  Washington,  on  the  death  of  Mr. 
Jefferson  and  Mr.  Adams,  to  pronounce  a  dis- 
course on  the  lives  and  characters  of  those  two 
remarkable  men  ;  this  was  delivered  on  the  nine- 
teenth of  October,  1826.  It  contains  several 
passages  of  a  strain  altogether  worthy  of  one 
of  the  most  impressive  occasions  that  ever  hap- 
pened in  any  age  or  country.  In  1830  he  de- 
livered an  address  to  one  of  the  literary  societies 
at  Rutgers'  College,  and  another  in  the  same 
year,  at  the  celebration  in  Baltimore  of  the  tri- 
umph of  liberty  in  France.  These  various  dis 
courses  have  been  printed,  and  are  in  the  hands 
of  the  public. 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  67 

It  remains  to  add  to  this  sketch  of  Mr.  Wirt's 
professional  career,  some  notice  of  him  as  an  ora- 
tor and  a  writer,  in  which  latter  capacity  he  is 
presented  in  the  ensuing  publication.  This 
contains,  indeed,  but  his  fugitive  essays,  the 
effusions  rather  of  haste  than  leisure.  The  more 
strenuous  efforts  of  his  mind  are  to  be  sought  in 
his  forensic  arguments,  a  great  portion  of  which 
will  share  the  fate  of  the  labours  of  other  great 
lawyers,  and  live  only  in  the  tradition  of  his 
hearers,  and  the  admiring  report  of  the  day. 
Such,  it  is  to  be  lamented,  has  been  the  fate  of 
the  greater  part  of  the  displays  of  Mr.  Pinkney. 
The  report  of  Burr's  trial  is  in  many  hands  how- 
ever, and  in  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Wirt  in  that 
case  the  jurist  will  applaud  more  his  extensive 
learning  and  comprehensive  reasoning,  than 
popular  readers  the  more  adorned  and  familiar 
passages.  Others  of  his  arguments,  on  questions 
of  law  or  great  constitutional  principles,  may 
still  be  preserved,  and  we  hope  will  be  collected. 
Among  his  writings  not  mentioned  before,  are 
the  essays  published  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer 
in  1809,  under  the  signature  of  "  The  Sentinel," 
which  throw  light  on  some  of  the  debated  ques- 
tions of  the  day.  The  essays  in  the  following 
volumes,  the  interludes  of  graver  business,  apart 


68  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

from  their  intrinsic  merit,  may  have  some  further 
curiosity  as  the  recreations  of  a  mind  more  than 
usually  engrossed  by  the  toils  of  the  most  labo- 
rious of  professions.  In  a  criticism  of  "  The 
Old  Bachelor,"  written  some  years  ago  by  an 
accomplished  scholar  and  critic,  the  writer  ob- 
serves, "  We  look  with  gratitude  and  wonder 
upon  a  gentleman  of  the  bar,  in  whom  the 
severest  labours,  and  highest  offices,  and  amplest 
emoluments,  and  brightest  laurels  of  his  profes- 
sion, have  not  stifled  the  generous  ambition  of 
letters ;  whose  mind  has  been  for  a  long  term 
of  years  exposed  to  the  atmosphere  of  the  courts, 
and  the  attrition  of  the  world  of  business,  with- 
out losing  any  of  the  finer  poetical  qualities 
with  which  it  was  richly  endowed."* 

"  The  British  Spy"  obtained,  on  its  first  ap- 
pearance, the  most  flattering  proof  of  merit, 
popularity,  which,  to  judge  from  its  nine  editions, 
it  has  continued  to  retain.  The  story  of  the 
Blind  Preacher  was  almost  as  current  as  those 
of  Le  Fevre  and  La  Roche.  The  sketches  ol 
character,  a  difficult  department  of  good  writing, 
were  esteemed  so  highly  descriptive,  in  the  cir- 


*  Review  of  ''  The  Old  Bachelor;"  Analectic  Magazine, 
October.  1818 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  69 

cles  where  the  depicted  orators  were  known,  as 
to  be  in  every  hand.  This  kind  of  literature 
was  little  practised  among  us  when  these  essays 
appeared ;  and  if  they  were  the  more  kindly 
received  on  that  account,  they  have  not  however 
(>een  succeeded,  in  a  period  of  nearly  thirty  years, 
oy  any  others  of  equal  merit,  of  the  same  stamp. 
'  The  Old  Bachelor"  seems,  like  its  predecessor, 
»  have  obtained  an  unexpected  popularity.  The 
;ritic  just  quoted,  says  of  these  essays,  "they 
Constitute  one  of  the  most  successful  experiments 
which  have  been  made  in  this  department  of  let- 
ters since  the  era  of  Johnson."  The  disquisi- 
tions on  eloquence,  "  originally,"  says  the  author, 
"  a  prominent  figure  in  his^  design,"  are  those, 
perhaps,  which  display  most  vigour,  are  imbued 
the  deepest  with  observation  and  thought,  and 
best  show  the  influence  on  the  author's  mind, 
of  his  familiar  reading  of  the  ancient,  classics. 
The  reader  would  be  glad  to  see  this  topic  re- 
sumed and  expanded  by  one  who  may  remind 
him,  in  some  of  the  better  passages,  of  the  grace- 
ful composition  imputed  to  Tacitus,  "  The  Dia- 
logue concerning  Oratory." 

Both  these  series  of  essays  give  a  general 
impression  that,  had  the  author  devoted  himself 
to  letters,  he  would  have  reached  some  of  the 


70  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

first  excellences  of  writing.  His  conceptions 
are  vigorous  anJ  plentiful,  his  sentiments  ele- 
vated and  warm ;  his  fancy,  if  it  sometimes 
betrays  him  into  hyperbole,  is  generally  delicate 
and  natural,  and  varies  from  grave  to  gay, 
though  not  with  equal  facility  in  both.  He  is 
serious  and  fervent  for  the  most  part ;  but  some 
of  his  best  papers  are  those  which,  in  the  midst 
of  their  earnestness  and  even  warmth,  have  a 
dash  of  good  humour  that  shows  he  could  have 
played  easily  and  cheerfully  with  his  subject. 
An  example  of  this  is  in  the  third  letter  of  the 
Spy,  where,  exposing  the  "  cold  conceit  of  the 
Roman  division  of  a  speech,"  he  describes  ludi- 
crously the  bustle  of  the  modern  orator  when  he 
reaches  the  peroration,  where  by  established 
usage  he  is  expected  to  be  sublime  or  pathetic. 
This  "  hysterical  vehemence"  is  sketched  from 
life,  with  the  felicity  of  Steele  or  Addison.  The 
same  vein  of  humorous  description  appears  in  the 
thirty-first  and  thirty-second  m  «ibers  of  the  Old 
Bachelor,  and  one  of  the  illustrative  anecdotes 
would  shine  in  a  new  treatise  peri  bathous 
This  sort  of  painting,  though  in  so  different  a 
style,  might  be  expected  from  a  hand  from  which 
we  have  the  inspired  sketch  of  the  Blind 
Preacher. 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  71 

The  mere  diction  of  these  essays  is  for  the 
most  part  what  he  himself  describes  as  a  good 
one,  "simple,  pure  and  transparent,  like  the 
atmosphere,  which  never  answers  its  purpose  so 
well  to  make  objects  seen,  as  when  free  from 
vapours  of  every  kind."  But  though  this  me- 
dium is  never  itself  misty  or  obscure,  it  is  now 
and  then  the  vehicle  of  images  somewhat  me- 
teoric and  glaring.  His  redundancy,  however,  is 
not  that  of  words,  but  of  the  thought,  "  vivo  gur- 
gite  exundans ;"  nor  is  it  the  redundancy  of 
weakness,  nor  often  of  wrong  taste,  but  thaf 
which  is  incident  to  hurried  composition.  Hi? 
images,  therefore,  are  frequently  natural  and  ele- 
gant. Of  the  figure  of  amplification,  we  had 
admired  the  beginning  of  the  twenty-third  num- 
ber of  the  Old  Bachelor  as  a  very  happy  exam- 
ple, when  we  found  it  mentioned  in  the  same 
light  in  the  criticism  already  quoted.  The  moral 
tone  of  the  writer,  and  the  "  amiable  fire"  with 
which  he  paints  virtue  and  inculcates  her  lessons, 
merit  the  most  emphatic  praise,  as  being  the 
chief  characteristic  and  aim  of  all  his  productions. 
Indeed  this  amiable  temper  meets  us  at  every 
turn  ;  and  to  that  quality,  and  not  to  any  mawk- 
ish affectation  of  sentiment,  is  to  be  referred 
much  of  the  warm  colouring  of  some  of  his 


2  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

descriptions.  He  looks  on  the  bright  side  of 
nature  and  human  life ;  a  turn  of  mind  in  a 
lawyer  of  two  score  years  of  practice,  that  indi- 
cates a  large  original  fund  of  candour,  generosity 
and  good  nature.  It  must  be  mentioned  that 
some  of  the  best  papers  of  the  Old  Bachelor  are 
from  other  hands ;  of  this  number  are  the  twenty- 
fifth,  twenty-ninth  and  thirty-third,  and  the  let- 
ters in  the  fifteenth  and  twenty-first. 

If  we  were  to  select  a  single  passage  from  Mr. 
Wirt's  writings  in  which  fee  has  most  succes- 
fully  addressed  our  moral  passions,  and  Called 
in  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  external  nature 
to  heighten  the  effect,  it  would  be  the  description 
in  the  discourse  upon  Adams  and  Jefferson,  of 
the  habitations  and  domestic  habits  of  these  two 
civic  heroes.  In  that  of  Monticello,  the  reader  is 
so  skilfully  wrought  up  by  the  mute  majesty  of 
the  material  images  which  the  orator  has  been 
gradually  assembling  around  him,  thc*t  he  sym- 
pathetically starts  at  the  announcement  of  the 
"  time-honoured"  habitant  of  the  spot.  We  do 
not  fear  to  trespass  on  the  reader  by  quoting  the 
whole  passage. 

"  Of '  the  chief  of  the  Argorauts,  as  Mr.  Jefferson  so  clas- 
sically and  so  happily  styled  his  illustrious  friend  of  the 
North,  it  is  ray  misforture  to  I*"  able  to  speak  only  by  re 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  73 

port.  But  every  representation  concurs,  in  drawing  the 
same  pleasing  and  affecting  picture  of  the  Roman  simplicity 
in  which  that  Father  of  ms  Country  lived ;  of  the  frank, 
warm,  cordial,  and  elegant  reception  that  he  gave  to  all  who 
approached  him ;  of  the  interesting  kindness  with  which  he 
disbursed  the  golden  treasures  of  his  experience,  and  shed 
around  him  the  rays  of  his  descending  sun.  His  conversa- 
tion was  rich  in  anecdote  and  characters  of  the  times  the^ 
were  past ;  rich  in  political  and  moral  instruction :  full  of 
that  best  of  wisdom,  which  is  learnt  from  real  life,  and  flowing 
from  his  heart  with  that  warm  and  honest  frankness,  that 
fervour  of  feeling  and  force  of  diction,  which  so  strikingly 
distinguished  him  in  the  meridian  of  his  life.  Many  of  us 
heard  that  simple  and  touching:  account  given  of  a  parting 
scene  with  him,  by  one  of  our  eloquent  divines  :  When  he 
rose  up  from  that  little  couch  behind  the  door,  on  which  he 
was  wont  to  rest  his  aged  and  weary  limbs,  and  with  his 
silver  locks  hanging  on  each  side  of  his  honest  face,  stretched 
forth  that  pure  hand,  which  was  never  soiled  even  by  a  sus- 
picion, and  gave  his  kind  and  parting  benediction.  Such 
was  the  blissful  and  honoured  retirement  of  the  sage  of 
duincy.  Happy  the  life,  which,  verging  upon  a  century, 
had  met  with  but  one  serious  political  disappointment !  and 
for  that,  too,  he  had  lived  to  receive  a  golden  atonement 
1  Even  there  where  he  had  garnered  up  his  heart.' 

"  Let  us  now  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  patriot  of  the  South. 
The  Roman  moralist,  in  that  great  work  which  he  has  left 
for  the  government  of  man  in  all  the  offices  of  life,  has  de- 
scended even  to  prescribe  the  kind  of  habitation  in  which  an 
honoured  and  distinguished  man  should  dwell.  It  should 
not¥  he  says,  be  small,  and  mean,  and  sordid :  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  extended  with  profuse  and  wanton  extravagance. 
It  should  be  large  enough  to  receive  and  accommodate  the 
visitors  which  such  a  man  never  fails  to  attract,  and  suited 

7 


74  BIOGRAPHV    OP 

in  its  ornaments,  as  well  as  its  dimensions,  to  the  character 
and  fortune  of  the  individual.  Monticello  has  now  lost  its 
great  charm.  Those  of  you  who  have  not  already  visited  it, 
will  not  be  very  apt  to  visit  it  hereafter:  and,  from  the 
feelings  which  you  cherish  for  its  departed  owner,  I  persuade 
myself  that  you  will  not  be  displeased  with  a  brief  and  rapid 
sketch  of  that  abode  of  domestic  bliss,  that  temple  of  science. 
Nor  is  it,  indeed,  foreign  to  the  express  purpose  of  this  meet- 
ing, which,  in  looking  to  '  his  life  and  character,'  naturally 
embraces  his  home  and  his  domestic  habits.  Can  any  thing 
be  indifferent  to  us,  which  was  so  dear  to  him,  and  which 
was  a  subject  of  such  just  admiration  to  the  hundreds  and 
thousands  that  were  continually  resorting  to  it,  as  to  an  object 
of  pious  pilgrimage "? 

"  The  Mansion  House  at  Monticello  was  built  and  fur- 
nished in  the  days  of  his  prosperity.  In  its  dimensions,  its 
architecture,  its  arrangements  and  ornaments,  it  is  such  a 
one  as  became  the  character  and  fortune  of  the  man.  It 
stands  upon  an  elliptic  plain,  formed  by  cutting  down  the 
apex  of  a  mountain ;  and,  on  the  west,  stretching  away  to 
the  north  and  the  south,  it  commands  a  view  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and  brings  under  the 
eye  one  of  the  boldest  and  most  beautiful  horizons  in  the 
world :  while,  on  the  east,  it  presents  an  extent  of  prospect 
bounded  only  by  the  spherical  form  of  the  earth,  in  which 
nature  seems  to  sleep  in  eternal  repose,  as  if  to  form  one  of 
her  finest  contrasts  with  the  rude  and  rolling  grandeur  on  the 
west.  In  the  wide  prospect,  and  scattered  to  the  north  ana 
south,  are  several  detached  mountains,  which  contribute  to 
animate  and  diversify  this  enchanting  landscape ;  and 
among  them,  to  the  south,  Willis's  Mountain,  which  is  so 
interestingly  depicted  in  his  Notes.  From  this  summit*  the 
Philosopher  was  wont  to  enjoy  that  spectacle,  among  the 
sublimest  of  Nature's  operations,  the  looming  of  the  distant 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  75 

• 

mountains;  and  to  watch  the  motions  ofjthe  planets,  and 
the  greater  revolution  of  the  celestial  sphere.  From  this 
summit,  too,  the  patriot  could  look  down,  with  uninterrupted 
vision,  upon  the  wide  expanse  of  the  world  around,  for  which 
he  considered  himself  born ;  and  upward,  to  the  open  and  vault- 
ed heavens  which  he  seemed  to  approach,  as  if  to  keep  him 
continually  in  mind  of  his  high  responsibility.  It  is  indeed 
a  prospect  in  which  you  see  and  feel,  at  once,  that  nothing 
mean  or  little  could  live.  It  is  a  scene  fit  to  nourish  those 
great  and  high-souled  principles  which  formed  the  ele- 
ments of  his  character,  and  was  a  most  noble  and  appro- 
priate post  for  such  a  sentinel,  over  the  rights  and  liberties  of 
man. 

"Approaching  the  house  on  the  east,  the  visiter  instinct- 
ively paused,  to  cast  around  one  thrilling  glance  at  this 
magnificent  panorama:  and  then  passed  to  the  vestibule, 
where,  if  he  had  not  been  previously  informed,  he  would 
immediately  perceive  that  he  was  entering  the  house  of 
no  common  man.  In  the  spacious  and  lofty  hall  which 
opens  before  him,  he  marks  no  tawdry  and  unmeaning  orna- 
ments :  but  before,  on  the  right,  on  the  left,  all  around,  the 
eye  is  struck  and  gratified  with  objects  of  science  and  taste, 
so  classed  and  arranged  as  to  produce  their  finest  effect.  On 
one  side,  specimens  of  sculpture  set  out  in  such  order,  as  to 
exhibit  at  a  coup  d'ceil,  the  historical  progress  of  that  art ; 
from  the  first  rude  attempts  of  the  aborigines  of  our  country, 
up  to  that  exquisite  and  finished  bust  of  the  great  patriot 
himself,  from  the  master  hand  of  Caracci.  On  the  other 
side,  the  visiter  sees  displayed  a  vast  collection  of  specimens 
of  Indian  art,  their  paintings,  weapons,  ornaments,  and 
manufactures  ;  on  another,  an  array  of  the  fossil  productions 
of  our  country,  mineral  and  animal ;  the  polished  remains 
of  those  colossal  monsters  that  once  trod  our  forests,  and  are 
no  more ;  and  a  variegated  display  of  the  branching  honourt 


76  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

• 

of  those  'monarchs  of  the  waste,'  that  still  people  the  wildi 
of  the  American  Continent. 

"  From  this  hall  he  was  ushered  into  a  noble  saloon,  from 
which  the  glorious  landscape  of  the  west  again  bursts  upon 
his  view ;  and  which,  within,  is  hung  thick  around  with  the 
finest  productions  of  the  pencil — historical  paintings  of  the 
most  striking  subjects  from  all  countries,  and  all  ages ;  the 
portraits  of  distinguished  men  and  patriots,  both  of  Europe 
and  America  and  medallions  and  engravings  in  endless 
profusion. 

"  While  the  visiter  was  yet  lost  in  the  contemplation  of 
these  treasures  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  he  was  startled  by 
the  approach  of  a  strong  and  sprightly  step,  and  turning 
with  instinctive  reverence  to  the  door  of  entrance,  he  was 
met  by  the  tall,  and  animated,  and  stately  figure  of  the  pa- 
triot himself — his  countenance  beaming  with  intelligence 
and  benignity,  and  his  outstretched  hand,  with  its  strong 
and  cordial  pressure,  confirming  the  courteous  welcome  of  his 
lips.  And  then  came  that  charm  of  manner  and  conversa- 
tion that  passes  all  description — so  cheerful — so  unassuming 
— so  free,  and  easy,  and  frank,  and  kind,  and  gay — that 
even  the  young,  and  overawed,  and  embarrassed  visiter  at 
once  forgot  his  fears,  and  felt  himself  by  the  side  of  an  old 
and  familiar  friend." 

In  the  "Life  of  Patrick  Henry,"  though  a 
work  of  Mr.  Wirt's  more  mature  age,  the  man- 
ner of  the  narrative  has  been  thought  too  ambi- 
tious, and  the  subject  of  it  to  be  decked  in  the 
colours  of  declamation  and  fancy.  These  are 
faults  to  repel  the  judicious  reader  ;  yet  the  vol- 
ume is  not  one  which  the  most  judicious  will 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  77 

lay  down  unfinished,  or  will  read  with  weari- 
ness. It  often  occurred  to  us,  we  confess,  in  our 
first  perusal  of  this  work,  that  the  hero  of  it 
seemed  more  like  the  creation  of  a  rhetorician, 
than  a  personage  of  history,  however  grave,  elo- 
quent and  eminent  in  the  view  of  his  contempo- 
raries ;  and,  in  common  with  others  of  the 
author's  readers,  we  gave  him  credit  for  having 
rilled  up  his  drawing  with  colours  over  rich  and 
splendid.  Yet  when  we  referred  again  to  the 
incidents  and  anecdotes,  and  found  them  often 
told  in  the  words  of  the  relaters  ;  when  we  recol- 
lected, however  vaguely  the  causes  might  be 
assigned,  there  was  a  general  concurrence  as  to 
the  effects  of  this  traditionary  eloquence;  we 
began  to  think  that  the  exaggeration,  if  any, 
was  that  of  the  witnesses  and  not  of  the  advocate 
in  the  cause.  Nor  will  it  account  for  this  lavish 
praise,  that  these  orations,  so  celebrated  ID  Vir- 
ginia, were  addressed,  as  has  been  said,  to  the 
more  popular  kinds  of  assemblies,  "  whose  feel- 
ings are  easily  excited,  and  whose  opinions  are 
seldom  founded  on  the  basis  of  rational  convic- 
tion."* This  is  not  true  of  a  large  portion  of 
these  efforts ;  on  the  contrary,  the  auditors  who 

*North  American  Review  for  March,  1818. 
7* 


78  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

are  witnesses  in  the  case,  were  many  of  them 
men  riot  only  of  the  til  st  eminence  in  their  own 
state,  but  famous  throughout  the  continent,  and 
some  of  them  themselves  the  men  of  posterity. 
Mr.  Jefferson,  who  is  surely  one  of  the  latter 
class,  uses  language  that  justifies  the  boldest 
praise  of  the  biographer,  and  proves  that  the 
powers  of  Henry  were  felt  alike  by  all  degrees 
both  of  condition  and  discernment.  That  emi- 
nent man  is  cited,  it  may  be  remembered,  as 
authority  for  many  passages  in  the  work  ;  and 
in  some  of  his  letters  communicating  information 
to  the  author,  he  is  known  to  have  spoken  of  the 
oratory  of  Henry  as  "bold,  grand  and  over- 
whelming," giving  "  examples  of  eloquence  such 
as  probably  had  never  been  exceeded,"  and  the 
man  himself  as  having  been  "the  idol  of  his  state," 
beyond  example.  Of  the  same  tone  is  the  evi- 
dence of  many  other  persons  whose  celebrity  is 
some  warrant  of  their  good  taste ;  and  many 
authentic  anecdotes  are  afloat,  some  of  them  odd 
enough,  and  not  such  as  to  find  place  in  a  serious 
work,  which  would  show  what  an  extraordinary 
impression  prevailed  in  his  native  state,  of  the 
command  of  this  memorable  person  over  the  rea- 
son as  well  as  the  passions  of  men.  Of  one  of 
these  great  displays  the  old  Congress  was  the 


WILLIAM    WIR'l.  79 

theatre ;  an  assembly  compared  with  the  most 
venerable  senates  of  ancient  or  modern  days,  by 
one  who  would  himself  have  been  the  ornament 
of  any ;  and  yet  the  tradition  of  its  effect  is  not 
less  constant  or  emphatic. 

No  anecdotes,  therefore,  related  of  ancient 
eloquence  are  more  authentic  than  those  of  the 
oratory  of  our  illustrious  countryman.  Yet, 
when  the  modern  reader,  in  an  age  too,  as  has 
been  sarcastically  observed,  when  writing  and 
printing  are  not  unknown,  asks  for  even  the 
fragments  of  this  splendid  web,  and  finds  them 
few  and  meager,  he  is  inclined  to  regard  the  evi- 
dence with  some  disbelief,  and  the  writer  who 
reflects  its  warmth  in  his  work,  as  credulous  and 
declamatory.  But  such  a  conclusion  is  to  disre- 
gard unjustifiably  a  cloud  of  judicious  contem- 
porary witnesses  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other,  to  forget  with  what  imperfect  remains,  care- 
lessly preserved,  mutilated  and  defaced  by  the 
collectors,  and  never  repaired  by  the  hand  of  the 
original  designer,  we  are  to  compare  their  descrip- 
tions. Of  the  greater  part  of  these  orations  we 
have  only  such  fragments  as  could  be  carried 
away  in  the  memory  of  the  hearers,  who,  however 
fit  to  estimate  their  excellence  as  critics,  might  not 
have  the  faculty  nor  the  occasion  to  relate  them 


80  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

• 

correctly.  Of  those,  again,  more  regularly 
reported,  as  in  the  debates  of  the  Virginia  Con- 
vention, it  is  a  striking  and  very  curious  cir- 
cumstance, that  the  reporter  seems  to  have 
"  dropped"  Mr.  Henry,  to  use  his  biographer's 
expression,  in  those  very  passages  where  the 
reader  would  be  most  anxious  to  follow  him.  So 
in  the  stenographical  notes  of  the  argument  on 
the  British  debts,  it  is,  as  the  biographer  informs 
us,  where  we  are  prepared  for  the  most  captiva- 
ting or  over  whelming  flights,  that  the  frequent 
erasures  bear  most  marks  of  an  apparent  but 
ineffectual  effort  to  recall  what  the  enchantment 
of  the  moment  caused  to  escape  the  verbal  record 
of  the  reporter.  Attentively  considered,  this  cir- 
cumstance, which  deprives  us  of  the  language  of 
the  orator,  is  another  of  the  many  homages  of 
his  hearers  to  his  enchanting  faculty. 

Recollecting  and  weighing  these  circum- 
stances, we  doubt  whether  the  author  of  the  Life 
of  Patrick  Henry  has  done  more  in  his  fervid 
delineation  of  him,  than  reflect  the  united  testi- 
mony of  witnesses  of  all  classes,  whether  friends 
or  foes.  Had  he,  in  fact,  practised  a  rhetorical 
art;  had  he  seemed  to  kindle  less  himself  in 
bringing  these  glowing  traditions  before  his 
reader,  and  in  reality  heightened  their  effect  by 


•WILLIAM    WIRT.  &1 

a  kind  of  reluctant  exhibition  of  their  energy  and 
unanimousness,  we  are  tempted  to  think  he 
would  more  completely  have  won  the  conviction 
which  we  cannot  reasonably  withhold  from  the 
evidence  he  has  adduced.  The  same  thing 
seems  true  of  the  companion-pieces  of  the  princi- 
pal portrait.  They  were  a  body  of  men  alto- 
gether remarkable  and  splendid,  and  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son, through  whose  hands  the  author's  manu- 
script passed,  declares  the  characters  to  be  "  inimi- 
tably and  justly  drawn."  Tradition,  it  must  be 
remarked,  so  uniform  in  respect  to  Mr.  Henry's 
oratory  is  no  less  so  as  to  his  defects  ;  and  it  is 
another  vindication  of  the  biographer's  impar- 
tiality, that  these  are  noted  without  hesitation  in 
his  memoir.  In  both  he  echoed  the  voice  of 
contemporaries,  and  in  regard  to  his  eloquence, 
only  joined  in  a  general  acclaim. 

These  observations  are  exceeding  our  limits, 
or  we  might  remark  it  as  somewhat  curious,  that 
the  "action"  which  Demosthenes  has  been 
thought  to  have  disproportionably  lauded,  and 
which,  by  universal  concurrence,  formed  the 
secret  and  chief  charm  of  Patrick  Henry's  elocu- 
tion, has  in  some  sort  caused  his  pretensions  to 
be  doubted.  Unwilling 'to  impute  such  extraor- 
dinary effects  to  such  a  cause,  we  prefer  to  reject 


82  BIOiiRAPHY   OP 

at  once  both  the  judgment  of  the  Greek  orator 
and  this  modern  evidence  of  its  truth ;  thus 
denying-  to  the  critic  the  confirmation  of  the  ex- 
ample, and  to  the  example  the  authority  of  the 
critic.  There  are,  however,  brief  passages  of 
Henry's,  as  they  are  given  in  his  life,  which, 
mutilated  as  they  have  come  down  to  us,  are 
worthy  of  Chatham,  and  worthy  of  any  orator, 
in  any  age.  The  biography,  we  think,  is  not 
likely  to  perish  either  from  want  of  interest  in  its 
subject,  or  of  skill  in  the  writer,  who,  without 
alteration  of  the  facts — which,  besides  the  popu- 
lar belief,  we  have  the  venerable  authority 
already  quoted,  that  he  took  great  pains  "  to  sift 
and  scrutinize," — but  by  subduing  the  warm 
tone  of  the  narrative,  may  render  it  an  enduring 
portion  of  our  popular  literature.  The  subject 
has  been  pursued  to  such  length,  however, 
chiefly  from  its  interest  as  a  general  question. 

In  taking  leave  of  it  we  may  add  the  opinion 
of  a  writer*  who,  though  snatched  away  in  the 
morning  of  a  promising  day,  may  be  cited  on  a 
subject  which  he  has  treated  with  no  less  know- 
ledge than  eloquence.  The  passage  is  equally 
complimentary  to  Patrick  Henry  and  Mr.  Wirt. 

*  The  late  Francis  Walker  Gilmer. 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  83 

K  Had  one,"  he  says,  "  with  so  rich  a  genius,  with 
such  a  soul  for  eloquence,  as  Mr.  Wirt  certainly 
possesses,  seen  Mr.  Henry  in  some  of  his  grandest 
exhibitions,  I  should  not  now  have  to  deplore  the 
want  of  a  finished  orator  at  any  American  bar. 
But  that  bright  meteor  shot  from  its  mid-heaven 
sphere  too  early  for  Mr.  Wirt,  and  the  glory  of 
his  art  descended  with  him."  As  the  most  effect- 
ive and  correct  description  of  Mr.  Wirt's  oratory 
to  which  we  can  add  nothing,  and  which  we 
should  be  unwilling  to  retrench,  we  extract  the 
remainder  of  this  passage,  though  it  is  probably 
familiar  to  many.  The  reader  may  recollect  that 
the  elocution  of  Mr.  Wirt  was  originally  faulty 
in  several  particulars.  Of  these  defects  his  nice 
ear  and  good  taste  rendered  him  painfully  sensi 
ble,  and  he  bent  himself  determinedly  to  the  cure 
of  them ;  with  what  success  will  appear  from 
Mr.  Gilmer's  picture  of  him. 

"  But  I  have  seen  no  one  who  has  such  natural  advan- 
tages and  so  many  qualities  requisite  for  genuine  eloquence 
as  Mr.  Wirt.  His  person  is  dignified  and  commanding; 
his  countenance  open,  manly  and  playful ;  his  voice  clear 
and  musical ;  and  his  whole  appearance  truly  oratorical. 
Judgment  and  imagination  hold  a  divided  dominion  over  his 
mind,  and  each  is  so  conspicuous  that  it  is  difficult  to  decide 
which  is  ascendant.  His  diction  unites  force,  purity,  variety 
and  splendour,  more  perfectly  than  that  of  any  speaker  I 
have  heard,  except  Mr.  Pinkney.  He  had  great  original 


84  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

powers  of  action,  but  they  have  been  totally  unassisted  oy 
the  contemplation  of  a  good  model.  His  wit  is  prompt 
pure,  and  brilliant,  but  these  lesser  scintillations  of  fancy  ara 
lost  in  the  blaze  of  his  reasoning  and  declamation. 

"His  premises  are  always  broad  and  distinctly  laid  down, 
his  deductions  are  faultless,  and  his  conclusions  of  course, 
irresistible  from  the  predicate.  In  this  he  resembles  what 
he  has  observed  of  Mr.  Marshall,  admit  his  first  proposition 
and  the  conclusion  is  inevitable.  The  march  of  his  mind 
is  direct  to  its  object,  the  evolutions  by  which  he  attains  it, 
are  so  new  and  beautiful,  and  apparently  necessary  to  the 
occasion,  that  your  admiration  is  kept  alive,  your  fancy 
delighted,  and  your  judgment  convinced,  through  every 
stage  of  the  process.  He  leaves  no  objection  to  his  reason- 
ing unanswered,  but  satisfies  every  doubt  as  he  advances. 
His  pOMpr  over  his  subject  is  so  great,  and  so  judiciously 
directed,  that  he  sweeps  the  whole  field  of  discussion,  rarely 
leaves  any  thing  for  his  assistants  to  glean,  and  sometimes 
anticipating  the  position  of  his  enemy's  battery,  renders  it 
useless,  by  destroying  before-hand  the  materials  of  which 
its  fortifications  were  to  be  erected.  He  has  been  sometimes 
known  to  answer,  by  anticipation,  all  the  arguments  of  the 
opposing  counsel  so  perfectly,  as  to  leave  him  nothing  to 
say  which  had  not  been  better  said  already.  These  great 
combinations  are  so  closely  connected,  the  succession  of 
their  parts  so  natural,  easy,  and  rapid,  that  the  whole  opera- 
tion, offensive  and  defensive,  appears  but  one  effort.  There 
is  no  weak  point  in  his  array,  no  chink  in  the  whole  line  o( 
his  extended  works.  Then  the  sweet  melody  of  voice,  the 
beautiful  decorations  of  fancy,  the  easy  play  of  a  powerful 
reason,  by  which  all  this  is  accomplished,  amaze  and  delight. 
His  pathos  is  natural  and  impressive ;  there  is  a  pastoral 
simplicity  and  tenderness  in  his  pictures  of  distress,  when 
he  describes  female  innocence,  helplessness,  and  beauty, 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  85 

which  the  husband  on  whom  she  smiled  should  have  guarded 
even  from  the  winds  of  heaven  which  might  visit  it  too 
rouglJy,  "  shivering  at  midnight  on  the  winter  banks  of  the 
Ohio,  and  mingling  her  tears  with  the  torrent,  which  froze 
as  they  fell;"  it  is  not  a  theatrical  trick,  to  move  a  fleeting 
pity,  but  a  deep  and  impressive  appeal  to  the  dignified  chari- 
ties of  our  nature."* 

An  opinion  prevailed  perhaps,  at  one  time, 
that  it  was  rather  in  the  ornate  than  the  severer 
qualities  of  oratory  that  Mr.  Wirt  excelled.  Ex- 
cept indeed  that  some  of  his  brilliancies,  if  we 
may  call  them  so,  found  their  way  into  popular 
works,  there  was,  perhaps,  no  better  reason  for 
supposing  a  person  who  wrote  with  taste,  and 
spoke  with  force  and  feeling,  on  that  account  to 
want  argument,  than  for  the  converse  in  the 
case  of  the  attorney,  who,  as  the  jest  goes,  was 
reported  to  be  a  great  lawyer  because  he  was  a 
miserable  speaker.  Those  who  knew  him  the 
earliest,  concur  that  the  striking  feature  of  his 
mind  "  was  the  power  of  argument,  of  close,  con- 
nected, cogent,  logical  reasoning."  In  the  un- 
foreseen points  that  arise  before  a  court,  where  the 
argument  of  counsel  must  be  instant  and  extem- 
poraneous, he  was  always  eminent  for  ready  force 
as  well  as  for  lucid  order.  The  writer  remembers 


Gilmer's  Sketches,  &c.  pp.  38,  39 
8 


86  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

the  first  forensic  encounter  between  him  and  Mr. 
Pinkney,  in  Baltimore,  and  the  impression  also 
of  his  speech  compared  with  that  of  his  formida- 
ble rival.  If,  to  use  an  old  figure,  he  was  struck 
by  the  elaborate  Gothic  beauties  of  the  one,  he 
drew  a  calmer  pleasure  from  the  Grecian  ele- 
gance and  proportions  of  the  other,  where  grace 
was  subservient  to  utility,  and  all  the  parts  were 
happily  disposed  toward  the  main  design.  In 
the  structure  of  his  speeches  there  is  much  of 
what  duintilian  calls  the  "  apta  junctura."  He 
seemed,  however,  in  his  own  words,  "  not  deco- 
rated for  pomp,  but  armed  for  battle."  Yet  this 
opinion  of  his  ornament,  "  scilicet  nimia  facilitas 
magis  quam  facultas,"  appeared  to  have  been 
somewhat  diffused ;  for  it  is  not  long  since  an 
eminent  judge,  on  first  hearing  the  advocate 
in  some  cause  of  moment,  observed  to  him  that 
he  did  not  know  till  then  that  he  was  a  logician. 
The  well  known  description  of  Blennerhasset 
and  his  Island  has  been  thought  no  more  than 
the  creation  of  the  orator's  fancy.  But  it  is  as 
well  known  to  many,  that  the  evidence  on  which 
that  passage  of  the  speech  was  founded,  (which 
does  not  appear  in  the  report  of  the  trial,)  was 
quite  as  high-wrought  in  the  description.  In 
fine,  we  may  appositely  quote  on  this  subject,  a 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  87 

passage  in  the  Dialogue  concerning  Oratory. 
The  unknown  but  graceful  writer  says  of  some  of 
Cicero's  earlier  orations,  "  Firmus  sane  paries,  et 
duraturus,  sed  non  satis  expolitus  et  splendens ;" 
and  he  continues  the  figure  naturally,  "  Non  eo 
tantum  volo  tecto  tegi,  quod  imbrem  ac  ven- 
tum  arceat,  sed  etiam  quod  visum  et  oculos 
delectet." 

Mr.  Wirt  has  appeared  in  causes  in  Philadel 
phia  and  Boston.  Of  his  many  arguments 
before  the  Supreme  Court  it  is  not  our  purpose 
to  speak ;  but  an  extract  may  not  be  unaccepta- 
ble from  a  speech  in  what  will  be  recollected  as 
the  "steam-boat  case,"  decided  by  that  court  in 
1824.  It  was  a  cause  of  deep  interest,  and  import- 
ant not  only  from  the  nature  of  the  individual 
rights  involved,  but  on  account  of  the  collisions 
which  gave  rise  to  it,  of  the  state  of  New- York, 
with  those  of  Connecticut  and  New  Jersey.  The 
arguments  of  counsel, — Webster  and  Wirt  for 
the  appellant,  Oakly  and  Emmet  for  the  appel- 
lee,— were  most  able  and  profound,  and  the 
papers  of  the  day,  which  were  much  occupied 
with  the  cause,  dwelt  with  emphasis  on  the 
ability  of  the  Attorney-General's  speech,  particu- 
larly of  the  concluding  passages,  in  which  with 
rare  felicity  he  had  retorted  on  his  eminent 


88  BIOGRAPHY    OF 

antagonist,  Mr.  Emmet,  a  quotation  of  the  latter 
from  Virgil. 

The  Attorney-General  observed,  that  his  learn- 
ed friend  (Mr.  Emmet)  had  eloquently  personi- 
fied the  state  of  New- York,  casting  her  eyes 
over  the  ocean,  witnessing  every  where  the 
triumph  of  her  genius,  and  exclaiming,  in  the 

language  of  JSneas, 

i 

"  'duseregio  in  terris,  nostri  non  plenae  laboris  V 

"  Sir,  it  was  not  in  the  moment  of  triumph,  nor  with  the 
feelings  of  triumph,  that  jEneas  uttered  that  exclamation. 
It  was  when,  with  his  faithful  Achates  by  his  side,  he  was 
surveying  the  works  of  art  with  which  the  palace  of  Car- 
thage was  adorned,  and  his  attention  had  been  caught  by  a 
representation  of  the  battles  of  Troy.  There  he  saw  the 
sons  of  Atreus,  and  Priam,  and  the  fierce  Achilles.  The 
whole  extent  of  his  misfortunes ;  the  loss  and  desolation  of 
his  friends ;  the  fall  of  his  beloved  country ;  rushed  upon 
his  recollection. 

'Constitit  etlachrymans,  quis  jam  locus,  inquit,  Achate, 
Gluae  regio  in  terris,  nostri  non  plense  laboris  1' 

"Sir,  the  passage  may  hereafter  have  a  closer  application 
to  the  cause  than  my  eloquent  and  classical  friend  intended. 
For  if  the  state  of  things  which  has  already  commenced,  is 
to  go  on ;  if  the  spirit  of  hostility  which  already  exists  in  three 
of  our  states,  is  to  catch  by  contagion,  and  spread  among  the 
rest,  as,  from  the  progress  of  the  human  passions,  and  the 
unavoidable  conflict  of  interests,  it  will  too  surely  do;  what 
are  we  to  expect!  Civil  wars,  arising  from  far  inferior 
causal,  have  desolated  some  of  the  fairest  provinces  of  the 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  89 

earth.  History  is  full  of  the  afflicting  narratives  oi'  such 
wars ;  and  it  will  continue  to  be  her  mournful  office  to  record 
them,  till  '  time  shall  be  no  longer.'  It  is  a  momentous  de- 
cision which  this  court  is  called  on  to  make.  Here  are  three 
states  almost  on  the  eve  of  war.  It  is  the  high  province  of 
this  court  to  interpose  its  benign  and  mediatorial  influence. 
The  framers  of  our  admirable  constitution  would  have  de- 
served the  wreath  of  immortality  which  they  have  acquired, 
had  they  done  nothing  else  than  to  establish  this  guardian 
tribunal,  to  harmonize  the  jarring  elements  in  our  system. 
But,  sb",  if  you  do  not  interpose  your  friendly  hand,  and 
extirpate  the  seeds  of  anarchy  which  New- York  has  sown, 
you  will  have  civil  war.  The  war  of  legislation  which  has 
already  commenced,  will,  according  to  its  usual  course, 
become  a  war  of  blows.  Your  country  will  be  shaken  with 
civil  strife.  Your  republican  institutions  will  perish  in  the 
conflict  Your  constitution  will  fall.  The  last  hope  of 
nations  will  be  gone.  And  what  will  be  the  effect  upon  the 
rest  of  the  world  1  Look  abroad  at  the  scenes  now  passing 
on  our  globe,  and  judge  of  that  effect  The  friends  of  free 
government  throughout  the  earth,  who  have  been  heretofore 
animated  by  our  example,  and  have  cheerfully  cast  their 
glance  to  it,  as  to  their  polar  star,  to  guide  them  through  the 
stormy  seas  of  revolution,  will  witness  our  fall,  wilh  dismay 
and  despair.  The  arm  that  is  every  where  lifted  in  the 
cause  of  liberty,  will  drop  unnerved  by  the  warrior's  side. 
Despotism  will  have  its  day  of  triumph,  and  will  accom- 
plish the  purpose  at  which  it  too  certainly  aims.  It  will 
cover  the  earth  with  the  mantle  of  mourning.  Then,  sir,  when 
New- York  shall  look  upon  this  scene  of  ruin,  if  she  have  the 
generous  feeangs  which  I  believe  her  to  have,  it  will  not  be 
with  her  head  aloft,  in  the  pride  of  conscious  triumph,  '  her 
rapt  soul  sitting  in  her  eyes.' — No,  sir,  no !  Dejected  with 
shame  and  confusion,  drooping  under  the  weight  of  her 


90  BIOGRAPHY    OP 

sorrow,  with  a  voice  suffocated  with  despair,  well  may  she 
then  .exclaim, 

" ' duis  jam  locus, 

Cluae  regio  in  terris,  nostri  non  plense  laboris  V  " 

Mr.  Wirt  has  just  entered  his  sixtieth  year, 
and  still  resides  in  Baltimore,  an  eminent  orna 
ment  of  a  state  which  may  number  with  some 
pride  among  her  sons,  a  Dulany,  a  Chase,  a 
Martin,  and  a  Pinkney.  For  the  narrative 
given  in  the  preceding  pages,  we  have  the  brief 
apology  of  the  classic :  "  hujus  vitam  narrare, 
fiduciam  potius  morum,  quam  arrogantiam." 


The  subject  of  the  above  memoir  has  acquired 
a  new  interest  with  the  public  from  his  nomina- 
tion by  the  Anti-Masonic  Convention,  assembled 
at  Baltimore  in  October  last,  as  a  candidate  for 
the  Presidency  of  the  United  States ;  an  emi- 
nence to  which  he  brings  the  pretensions  of  pure 
morals  and  native  dignity ;  of  a  high  intellect, 
clear,  vigorous  and  direct,  refined  by  knowledge, 
and  by  a  large  acquaintance  with  mankind,  espe- 
cially with  the  eminent  talents  of  his  age ;  of 
profound  constitutional  learning,  and  of  an  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  the  points  and  course  of  our 


WILLIAM    WIRT.  91 

national  policy,  acquired  during  a  period  of 
twelve  years,  during  which,  in  the  capacity  of 
Attorney-General,  he  held  a  seat  in  the  cabi 
net.  No  man  has  more  integrity  in  private  life, 
and  none  would  bring  into  the  administration 
of  public  affairs  a  more  sincere,  candid,  elevated 
or  patriotic  purpose.  Though,  restrained  by 
personal  and  professional  considerations,  he  has 
never  mingled  in  the  competitions  of  politics,  he 
has  spoken  and  written  on  many  of  the  questions 
which  have  agitated  and  divided  the  public 
opinion.  Such  a  mind,  with  such  opportunities 
and  occasions  of  observation,  must  have  cast 
over  the  whole  field  of  our  policy,  that  broad  and 
comprehensive  glance  which  justifies  this  recent 
proof  of  the  confidence  of  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  public 


THE 


BRITISH    SPY 


ADVERTISEMENT. 

THE  publishers  having  become  possessed  of 
a  copy  of  "The  British  Spy,"  which  has  passed 
through  the  hands  of  the  author,  eagerly  em- 
brace an  opportunity  of  submitting  a  correct 
edition  of  that  work  to  the  patronage  of  the 
public.  These  letters  were  originally  inserted 
in  a  daily  journal ;  and  they  appeared  with  all 
the  imperfections  to  which  such  a  mode  of  pub- 
lication is  unavoidably  liable.  In  the  present 
edition,  a  variety  of  errors  have  been  corrected ; 
and  nothing  has  been  spared  which  it  was 
supposed  could  add  to  its  value. 

Of  the  literary  merit  of  a  work  which  has 
passed  the  ordeal  of  criticism  with  honour,  not 
only  to  the  author  but  to  his  country,  it  would 
be  impertinent  to  speak.  Common  fame  has 
decided  it  to  be  the  fruit  of  an  American  pen ; 


ADVERTISEMENT. 

and  classical  taste  has  pronounced  it  to  be  the 

offspring  of  genius.     To  those  who  would  in- 

• 
culcate  the  degrading  doctrine,  that  this  is  the 

country 

"  Where  Genius  sickens,  and  where  Fancy  dies,"* 

we  would  offer  the  letters  of  thp  British  Spy 
as  an  unquestionable  evidence  that  America  is 
entitled  to  a  high  rank  in  the  republic  of  letters ; 
and  that  the  empyreal  flame  may  be  respired 
under  any  region. 

*  Clifton. 


TO  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE   VIRGINIA  ARGUS. 

Sir, 

THE  manuscript,  from  which  the  following  letters  are 
extracted,  was  found  in  the  bed-chamber  of  a  boarding-house 
in  a  seaport  town  of  Virginia.  The  gentleman,  who  had 
previously  occupied  that  chamber,  is  represented,  by  the 
mistress  of  the  house,  to  have  been  a  meek  and  harmless 
young  man,  who  meddled  very  little  with  the  affairs  of 
others,  and  concerning  whom  no  one  appeared  sufficiently 
interested  to  make  any  inquiry.  As  it  seems  from  the 
manuscript  that  the  name  by  which  he  passed  was  not  his 
real  name,  and  as,  moreover,  she  knew  nothing  of  his 
residence,  so  that  she  was  totally  ignorant  to  whom  and 
whither  to  direct  it,  she  considered  the  manuscript  as  law- 
ful prize,  and  made  a  present  of  it  to  me.  It  seems  to  be  a 
copy  of  letters  written  by  a  young  Englishman  of  rank, 
during  a  tour  through  the  United  States,  in  1803,  to  a 
member  of  the  British  parliament  They  are  dated  from 
almost  every  part  of  the  United  States,  contain  a  great 
deal  of  geographical  description,  a  delineation  of  every 
character  of  note  among  us,  some  literary  disquisitions, 

with  a  great  mixture  of  moral  and  political   observation 
9 


The  letters  are  prettily  written.  Persons  of  every  de- 
scription will  find  in  them  a  light  and  agreeable  enter- 
tainment; and  to  the  younger  part  of  your  readers  they 
may  not  be  uninstructivc.  For  the  present  I  select  a 
few  which  were  written  from  this  place,  and  by  way  of 
distinction,  will  give  them  to  you  under  the  title  of  the 
British  Spy. 


THE  BRITISH  SPY. 


LETTER  I. 

Richmond,  September  1. 

You  complain,   my  dear  S ,  that 

although  I  have  been  resident  in  Richmond 
upward  of  six  months,  you  have  heard  nothing 
from  me  since  my  arrival.  The  truth  is,  that  I 
had  suspended  writing  until  a  more  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  people  and  their  country 
should  furnish  me  with  the  materials  for  a  cor- 
respondence. Having  now  collected  those  mate- 
rials, the  apology  ceases,  and  the  correspondence 
begins.  But  first,  a  word  of  myself. 

I  still  continue  to  wear  the  mask,  and  most 
willingly  exchange  the  attentions,  which  would 
be  paid  to  my  rank,  for  the  superior  and  exqui- 
site pleasure  of  inspecting  this  country  and  this 
people,  without  attracting  to  myself  a  single  eye 
of  curiosity,  or  awakening  a  shade  of  suspicion. 
Under  my  assumed  name,  I  gain  an  admission 


100  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

close  enough  to  trace,  at  leisure,  every  line  of 
the  American  character ;  while  the  plainness,  or 
rather  humility  of  my  appearance,  my  manners 
and  conversation,  put  no  one  on  his  guard,  but 
enable  me  to  take  the  portrait  of  nature,  as  it 
were,  asleep  and  naked.  Beside,  there  is  some- 
thing of  innocent  roguery  in  this  masquerade, 
which  I  am  playing,  that  sorts  very  well  with 
the  sportiveness  of  my  temper.  To  sit  and  decoy 
the  human  heart  from  behind  all  its  disguises  : 
to  watch  the  capricious  evolutions  of  unrestrained 
nature,  frisking,  curvetting  and  gambolling  at 
her  ease,  with  the  curtain  of  ceremony  drawn 
up  to  the  very  sky — Oh !  it  is  delightful ! 

You  are  perhaps  surprised  at  my  speaking  of 
the  attentions  which  would  be  paid  in  this 
country  to  my  rank.  You  will  suppose  that  I 
have  'forgotten  where  I  am :  no  such  thing.  I 
remember  well  enough  that  I  am  in  Virginia, 
that  state,  which,  of  all  the  rest,  plumes  herself 
most  highly  on  the  democratic  spirit  of  her  prin- 
ciples. Her  political  principles  are  indeed  demo- 
cratic enough  in  all  conscience.  Rights  and 
privileges,  as  regulated  by  the  constitution  of  the 
Btate,  belong  in  equal  degree  to  all  the  citizens ; 
and  Peter  Pindar's  remark  is  perfectly  true  of 
the  people  of  this  country,  that  "every  black 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  101 

guard  scoundrel  is  a  king."*  Nevertheless, 
there  exists  in  Virginia  a  species  of  social  rank, 
from  which  no  country  can,  I  presume,  be  en- 
tirely free.  I  mean  that  kind  of  rank  which 
arises  from  the  different  degrees  of  wealth  and 
of  intellectual  refinement.  These  must  introduce 
a  style  of  living  and  of  conversation,  the  former 
of  which  a  poor  man  cannot  attain,  while  an 
ignorant  one  would  be  incapable  of  enjoying  the 
latter.  It  seems  to  me  that  from  these  causes, 
wherever  they  may  exist,  circles  of  society, 
strongly  discriminated,  must  inevitably  result. 
And  one  of  these  causes  exists  in  full  force  in 
Virginia ;  for,  however  they  may  vaunt  of 
"  equal  liberty  in  church  and  state,"  they  have 
but  little  to  boast  on  the  subject  of  equal  property. 
Indeed  there  is  no  country,  I  believe,  where 
property  is  more  unequally  distributed  than  in 
Virginia.  This  inequality  struck  me  with  pe- 
culiar force  in  riding  through  the  lower  counties 
on  the  Potomac.  Here  and  there  a  stately  aris- 
tocratic palace,  with  all  its  appurtenances,  strikes 
the  view;  while  all  around,  for  many  miles,  no 
other  buildings  are  to  be  seen  but  the  little  smoky 
huts  and  log  cabins  of  poor,  laborious,  ignorant 

*  The  reader  needs  scarcely  to  be  reminded  that  the  writer 

is  a  Briton,  and  trur,  to  his  character. 
0* 


102  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

tenants.  And,  what  is  very  ridiculous,  these 
tenants,  while  they  approach  the  great  house, 
cap  in  hand,  with  all  the  fearful,  trembling  sub- 
mission of  the  lowest  feudal  vassals,  boast  in 
their  court-yards,  with  obstreperous  exultation, 
that  they  live  in  a  land  of  freemen,  a  land  of 
equal  liberty  and  equal  rights.  Whether  this 
debasing  sense  of  inferiority,  which  I  have  men- 
tioned, be  a  remnant  of  their  colonial  character, 
or  whether  it  be  that  it  is  natural  for  poverty  and 
impotence  to  look  up  with  veneration  to  wealth, 
and  power,  and  rank,  I  cannot  decide.  For  my 
own  part,  however,  I  have  ascribed  it  to  the 
latter  cause ;  and  I  have  been  in  a  great  degree 
confirmed  in  the  opinion,  by  observing  the  atten- 
tions which  were  paid  by  the  most  genteel  people 

here  to the  son  of  lord 

You  know  the  circumstances  in  which  his 
lordship  left  Virginia :  that  so  far  from  being 
popular,  he  carried  with  him  the  deepest  execra- 
tions of  these  people.  Even  now,  his  name  is 
seldom  mentioned  here  but  in  connexion  with 
terms  of  abhorrence  or  contempt.  Aware  of 

this,  and  believing  it  impossible  that 

was  indebted  to  his  father,  for  all  the  parade  of 
respect  which  was  shown  to  him,  I  sought,  in 
his  own  personal  accomplishments,  a  solution  of 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  103 

the  phenomenon.  But  I  sought  in  vain.  Without 
one  solitary  ray  of  native  genius,  without  one 
adventitious  beam  of  science,  without  any  of 
those  traits  of  soft  benevolence  which  are  so  uni- 
versally captivating,  I  found  his  mind  dark  and 
benighted,  his  manners'  bold,  forward  and 
assuming,  and  his  whole  character  evidently 
inflated  with  the  consideration  that  he  was  the 
son  of  a  lord.  His  deportment  was  so  evidently 
dictated  by  this  consideration,  and  he  regarded 
the  Virginians  so  palpably,  in  the  humiliating 
light  of  inferior  plebeians,  that  I  have  often 
wondered  how  such  a  man,  and  the  son  too  of 
so  very  unpopular  a  father,  escaped  from  this 
country  without  personal  injury,  or,  at  least,  per- 
sonal insult.  I  am  now  persuaded,  that  this 
impunity,  and  the  great  respect  which  was  paid 
to  him,  resulted  solely  from  his  noble  descent, 
and  was  nothing  more  than  the  tribute  which 
man  pays  either  to  imaginary  or  real  superiority. 
On  this  occasion,  I  stated  my  surprise  to  a  young 
Virginian,  who  happened  to  belong  to  the  demo- 
cratic party.  He,  however,  did  not  choose  to 
admit  the  statement;  but  asserted,  that  whatever 

respect  had  been  shown  to , 

proceeded  solely  from  the  federalists  ;  and  that  it 
was  an  unguarded  evolution  of  their  private 


104  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

attachment  to  monarchy  and  its  appendages.  J 
then  stated  the  subject  to  a  very  sensible  gentle 
man,  whom  I  knew  to  belong  to  the  federal  pha 
lanx.  Not  willing  to  degrade  his  party  bj 
admitting  that  they  would  prostrate  themselves 
before  the  empty  shadow  of  nobility,  he  alleged 
that  nothing  had  been  manifested  towards 

young ,  beyond  the  hospitality 

which  was  due  to  a  genteel  stranger  ;  and  that 
if  there  had  been  any  thing  of  parade  on  his 
account,  it  was  attributable  only  to  the  ladies,  who 
had  merely  exercised  their  wonted  privilege  of 
coquetting  it  with  a  fine  young  fellow*  But 
notwithstanding  all  this,  it  was  easy  to  discern 
in  the  look,  the  voice,  and  whole  manner,  with 
which  gentlemen  as  well  as  ladies  of  both  parlies 

saluted  and  accosted  young ,  a 

secret  spirit  of  respectful  diffidence,  a  species  of 
silent,  reverential  abasement,  which,  as  it  could 
not  have  been  excited  by  his  personal  qualities, 
must  have  been  homage  to  his  rank.  Judge, 
then,  whether  I  have  not  just  reason  to  appre- 
hend, that  on  the  annunciation  of  my  real  name, 
the  curtain  of  ceremony  would  fall,  and  nature 
would  cease  to  play  her  pranks  before  me. 

Richmond  is  built,  as  you  will  remember,  on  the 
north  side  of  James  river,  and  at  the  head  of  tidi 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  105 

water.  There  is  a  manuscript  in  this  state  which 
relates  a  curious  anecdote  concerning  the  origin 
of  this  town.  The  land  hereabout  was  owned 
by  Col.  William  Byrd.  This  gentleman,  with 
the  former  proprietor  of  the  land  at  the  head  of 
tide  water  on  Appomatox  river,  was  appointed, 
it  seems,  to  run  the  line  between  Virginia  and 
North  Carolina.  The  operation  was  a  most 
tremendous  one ;  for,  in  the  execution  of  it,  they 
had  to  penetrate  <md  pass  quite  through  the  great 
Dismal  Swamp.  It  would  be  almost  impossible 
to  give  you  a  just  conception  of  the  horrors  of 
this  enterprise.  Imagine  to  yourself  an  immense 
morass,  more  than  forty  miles  in  length  and 
twenty  in  breadth,  its  soil  a  black,  deep  mire, 
covered  with  a  stupendous  forest  of  juniper  and 
cypress  trees,  whose  luxuriant  branches,  inter- 
woven throughout,  intercept  the  beams  of  the 
sun  and  teach  day  to  counterfeit  the  night  This 
forest,  which  until  that  time,  perhaps,  the  human 
foot  had  never  violated,  had  become  the  secure 
retreat  of  ten  thousand  beasts  of  prey.  The 
adventurers,  therefore,  beside  the  almost  endless 
labour  of  felling  trees  in  a  proper  direction  to 
form  a  footway  throughout,  moved  amid  per- 
petual terrors,  and  each  night  had  to  sleep  en 
militaire,  upon  their  arms,  surrounded  with  the 


106  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

deafening,  soul-chilling  yell  of  those  hungei 
smitten  lords  of  the  desert.  It  was,  one  night, 
as  they  lay  in  the  midst,  of  scenes  like  these,  that 
Hope,  that  never-failing  friend  of  man,  paid  them 
a  consoling  visit,  and  sketched  in  brilliant  pros- 
pect the  plans  of  Richmond  and  Petersburg.* 

Richmond  occupies  a  very  picturesque  and 
most  beautiful  situation.  I  have  never  met  with 
such  an  assemblage  of  striking  and  interesting 
objects.  The  town,  dispersed  over  hills  of  various 
shapes ;  the  river  descending  from  west  to  east, 
and  obstructed  by  a  multitude  of  small  islands, 
clumps  of  trees,  and  myriads  of  rocks ;  among 
which  it  tumbles,  foams,  and  roars,  constituting 
what  are  called  the  falls ;  the  same  river,  at  the 
lower  end  of  the  town,  bending  at  right  angles 
to  the  south,  and  winding  reluctantly  off  for 
many  miles  in  that  direction  !  its  polished  sur- 
face caught  here  and  there  by  the  eye,  but 
more  generally  covered  from  the  view  by  trees  ; 
among  which  the  white  sails  of  approa:hing  and 
departing  vessels  exhibit  a  curious  and  interest- 
ing appearance :  then  again,  on  the  opposite 

*  So  at  least,  speaks  the  manuscript  account  which  Col. 
Byrd  has  left  of  this  expedition,  and  which  is  now  in  the 
nands  of  some  of  his  descendants ;  perhaps  of  the  family  at 
Westover. 


TTHE    BRITISH    SPY.  10? 

side,  the  little  town  of  Manchester,  built  on  a 
hill,  which,  sloping  gently  to  the  river,  opens 
the  whole  town  to  the  view,  interspersed,  as  it 
is,  with  vigorous,  and  flourishing  poplars,  and 
surrounded  to  a  great  distance  by  green  plains 
and  stately  woods — all  these  objects,  falling  at 
once  under  the  eye,  constitute,  by  far,  the  most 
finely  varied  and  most  animated  landscape  that 
I  have  ever  seen.  A  mountain,  like  the  Blue 
Ridge,  in  the  western  horizon,  and  the  rich  tint 
with  which  the  hand  of  a  Pennsylvanian  farmer 
would  paint  the  adjacent  fields,  would  make  this 
a  more  enchanting  spot  than  even  Demascus  is 
described  to  be. 

I  will  endeavour  to  procure  for  you  a  perspec- 
tive view  of  Richmond,  with  the  embellishments 
of  fancy  which  I  have  just  mentioned ;  and  you 
will  do  me  the  honour  to  give  it  a  place  in  your 
pavilion. 

Adieu  for  the  present,  my  dear  S 

May  the  perpetual  smiles  of  heaven  be  yours. 


108  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 


LETTER  II. 

Richmond,  September  7. 

ALMOST  every  day,  My  dear  S  .  .  .  .  ,  some 
new  evidence  presents  itself  in  support  of  the 
Abbe  Raynal's  opinion,  that  this  continent  was 
once  covered  by  the  ocean,  from  which  it  lias 
gradually  emerged.  But  that  this  emersion  is, 
even  comparatively  speaking,  of  recent  date,  can- 
not be  admitted  ;  unless  the  comparison  be  made 
with  the  creation  of  the  earth ;  and  even  then,  in 
order  to  justify  the  remark,  the  era  of  the  crea- 
tion must,  I  fear,  be  fixed  much  further  back  than 
the  period  which  has  been  inferred  from  the 
Mosaic  account.* 

*  Some  error  has  certainly  happened  in  computing  the 
era  of  the  earth's  creation  from  the  five  books  of  Moses. 
Voltaire  informs  us,  that  certain  French  philosophers,  who 
visited  China,  inspected  the  official  register  or  history  of  the 
eclipses  of  the  sun  and  moon,  which,  it  seems,  has  been  con- 
tinually kept  in  that  country ;  that  on  calculating  them  back, 
they  were  all  found  correct,  and  conducted  those  philosophers 
to  a  period,  (I  will  not  undertake  to  speak  with  certainty  of 
the  time,  but  I  think,)  twenty-three  centuries  before  the 
Mosaic  era.  It  is  notorious,  however,  that  the  Chinese 
plume  themselves  on  the  antiquity  of  their  country ;  and  in 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  109 

The  following  facts  are  authenticated  beyond 
any  kind  of  doubt.  During  the  last  spring  a 
gentleman  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Williams- 
order  to  prop  this,  it  would  have  been  just  as  easy  for  the 
Chinese  astronomers  to  have  fabricated  and  dressed  up  the 
register  in  question,  by  posterior  calculations,  as  for  the 
Vrench  astronomers  to  have  made  their  retrospective  exami- 
nation of  the  accuracy  of  those  eclipses.  The  same  science 
precisely  was  requisite  for  both  purposes ;  and  although  the 
improvement  of  the  arts  and  sciences  in  China,  was  found 
by  the  first  Europeans  who  went  amongst  them,  to  bear  no 
proportion  to  the  antiquity  of  the  country,  yet  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  the  Chinese  mandarins  were  at  least  sis 
competent  to  the  calculation  of  an  eclipse  as  the  Shepherds 
of  Egypt.  Indeed  we  are,  I  believe,  expressly  told,  that  the 
Chinese,  long  before  they  were  visited  by  the  people  of 
Europe,  had  been  in  the  habit  of  using  a  species  of  astrono- 
mical apparatus ;  and  of  stamping  almanacs  from  plates  or 
blocks,  many  hundred  years,  even  before  printing  was  dis- 
covered in  Europe.  I  see  no  great  reason,  therefore,  to  rely 
with  very  implicit  confidence  on  the  register  of  China. 
Indeed  I  am  very  little  disposed  to  build  my  faith,  as  to  any 
historical  fact,  on  evidence  perfectly  within  the  reach  of 
human  art  and  imposture;  comprehending  all  writings, 
inscriptions,  literary  or  hieroglyphic,  medals,  &c.  which 
tend  either  to  natter  our  passion  for  the  marvellous,  or 
aggrandize  the  particular  nation  in  whose  bosom  they  are 
found.  And,  therefore,  together  with  the  Chinese  register,  I 
throw  out  of  the  consideration  of  this  question  another  record 
wnich  goes  to  the  same  purpose ;  I  mean  the  Chaldaic  manu- 
script found  by  Alexander  in  the  city  of  Babylon. 

The  inferences  reported  by  Mr.  Brydone,  as  having  been 
10 


110  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

burg,  about  sixty  miles  below  this  place,  in  dig- 
ging1 a  ditch  on  his  farm,  discovered  about  four 
or  five  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  earth,  a  con- 
drawn  by  Rccupero,  from  the  lavas  of  mount  Etna  (those 
stupendous  records  which  no  human  art  or  imposture  could 
possibly  have  fabricated)  deserve,  I  think,  much  more  serious 
attention.  They  are  subject,  indeed,  to  one  of  the  preceding 
objections,  to  wit :  that  the  data,  from  which  all  the  subsequent 
calculations  are  drawn,  are  inscriptions :  appealing  not  only 
to  our  passion  for  the  marvellous,  but  flattering  the  vanity  of 
the  Sicilians,  by  establishing  the  great  age  of  their  mountain, 
at  once  their  curse  and  their  blessing.  These  inscriptions, 
however,  do  not  rest  merely  on  their  own  authority :  they 
allege  a  fact  which  is  very  strongly  countenanced  by  recent 
and  unerring  observation.  As  Brydone  may  not  be  in  the 
hands  of  every  person  who  may  chance  to  possess  and  read 
this  bagatelle,  and  as  this  subject  is  really  curious  and  inter- 
esting, I  beg  leave  to  subjoin  those  parts  of  that  traveller's 
v  ighly  entertaining  letters  which  relate  to  it 

"  The  last  lava  we  crossed,  before  our  arrival  there  (Jaci 
Reale)  is  of  vast  extent  I  thought  we  never  should  have 
had  done  with  it ;  it  certainly  is  not  less  than  six  or  seven 
miles  broad,  and  appears  in  many  places  to  be  of  an  enor- 
mous depth. 

"  When  we  came  near  the  sea,  I  was  desirous  to  see  what 
form  it  had  assumed  in  meeting  with  the  water.  I  went  to 
examine  it,  and  found  it  had  driven  back  the  waves  for 
upward  of  a  mile,  and  had  formed  a  large,  black,  high  prom- 
ontory, where,  before,  it  was  deep  water.  This  lava,  I 
imagined,  from  its  barrenness,  for  it  is,  as  yet,  covered  with 
a  very  scanty  soil,  had  run  from  the  mountain  only  a  few 
ages  ago;  but  was  surprised  to  be  informed  by  Signer  Recu- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  Ill 

siderable  portion  of  the  skeleton  of  a  whale. 
Several  fragments  of  the  ribs  and  other  parts  of 
the  system  were  found;  and  all  the  vertebras 

pero,  the  historiographer  of  Etna,  that  this  very  lava  is  men- 
tioned by  Diodorus  Siculus  to  have  burst  from  Etna  in  the 
time  of  the  second  Punic  war,  when  Syracuse  was  besieged 
by  the  Romans.  A  detachment  was  sent  from  Taurominum 
to  the  relief  of  the  besieged.  They  were  stopped  on  their 
march  by  this  stream  of  lava,  which  having  reached  the  sea 
before  their  arrival  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  had  cut  off 
their  passage,  and  obliged  them  to  return  by  the  back  of 
Etna,  upwards  of  a  hundred  miles  about.  His  authority  for 
this,  he  tells  me,  was  taken  from  inscriptions  on  Roman 
monuments  found  on  this  lava,  and  that  it  was  likewise  well 
ascertained  by  many  of  the  old  Sicilian  authors.  Now  as 
this  is  about  two  thousand  years  ago,  one  would  imagine,  if 
lavas  have  a  regular  progress  in  becoming  fertile  fields,  that 
this  must  long  ago  have  become  at  least  arable ;  this,  how- 
ever, is  not  the  case :  and  it  is,  as  yet,  only  covered  with  a 
very  scanty  vegetation,  and  incapable  of  producing  either 
corn  or  vines.  There  are  indeed  pretty  large  trees  growing 
in  the  crevices  which  are  full  of  a  rich  earth;  but  in  all 
probability,  it  will  be  some  hundred  years  yet,  before  there  is 
enough  of  it  to  render  this  land  of  anyuse  to  the  proprietors. 

"  It  is  curious  to  consider,  that  the  surface  of  this  black 
and  barren  matter,  in  process  of  time,  becomes  one  of  the 
most  fertile  soils  upon  earth.  But  what  must  be  the  time  to 
bring  it  to  its  utmost  perfection,  when  after  two  thonsand 
years,  it  is  still,  in  most  places,  but  a  barren  rockl" — Vol.  1. 
Letter  6. 

"Signior  Recupero,  who  obligingly  engages  to  be  our 
cicerone,  has  shown  us  some  curious  remains  of  antiquity; 


112  iHE    BRITISH    SPY. 

regularly  arranged  and  very  little  impaired  as  to 
their  figure.  The  spot  on  which  this  skeleton 
was  found,  lies  about  two  miles  from  the  nearest 
shore  of  James  river,  and  fifty  or  sixty  from 
the  Atlantic  Ocean.  The  whole  phenomenon 
bore  the  clearest  evidence  that  the  animal  had 
perished  in  its  native  element ;  and  -as  the  ocean 
is  the  nearest  resort  of  the  whale,  it  follows  that 


but  they  have  been  all  so  shaken  and  shattered  by  the  moun 
tain,  that  hardly  any  thing  is  to  be  found  entire. 

"  Near  to  a  vault,  which  is  now  thirty  feet  below  ground, 
and  has,  probably,  been  a  burial  place,  there  is  a  draw-well, 
where  there  are  several  strata  of  lavas,  with  earth  to  a  conside- 
rable thickness  over  the  surface  of  each  stratum.  Recupero  has 
made  use  of  this  as  an  argument  to  prove  the  great  antiquity  of 
the  mountain.  For  if  it  require  two  thousand  years  or  upward, 
to  form  but  a  scanty  soil  on  the  surface  of  a  lava,  there  must 
have  been  more  than  that  space  of  time  betwixt  each  of  the 
eruptions  which  have  formed  the  strata.  But  what  shall  we 
say  of  a  pit  they  sunk  near  to  Jaci  of  a  great  depth.  They 
pierced  through  seven  distinct  lavas,  one  under  the  other,  the 
surfaces  of  which  were  parallel,  and  most  of  them  covered 
with  a  thick  bed  of  rich  earth.  Now,  says  he,  the  eruption 
which  formed  the  lowest  of  these  lavas,  if  we  may  be  allowed 
to  reason  from  analogy,  must  have  flowed  from  the  mountain 
at  least  fourteen  thousand  years  ago." — Vol.  I.  Letter  7. 
Whereas  the  computation  inferred,  but  without  doubt  inac- 
curately, from  the  Pentateuch,  makes  the  enrth  itself  only 
between  five  and  six  thousand  years  old. 


THE    BRITISH    SPV.  113 

the  ocean  must  once  have  covered  the  country,  at 
least  as  high  up  as  Williamsburg. 

Again,  in  digging  several  wells  lately  in  this 
town,  the  teeth  of  sharks  were  found  from  sixty 
to  ninety  or  a  hundred  feet  below  the  surface  of 
the  earth.  The  probability  is  that  these  teeth 
were  deposited  by  the  shark  itself;  and  as  this 
fish  is  never  known  to  infest  very  shallow 
streams,  the  conclusion  is  clear  that  this  whole 
country  has  once  been  buried  under  several  fath- 
oms of  water.  At  all  events,  these  teeth  must 
be  considered  as  ascertaining  what  was  once  the 
surface  of  the  earth  here  ;  which  surface  is  very 
little  higher  than  that  of  James  river.  Now  if  it 
be  considered  that  there  has  been  no  perceptible 
difference  wrought  in  the  figure  or  elevation  of 
the  coast,  nor,  consequently,  in  the  precipitation 
of  the  interior  streams  since  the  earliest  recorded 
discovery  of  Virginia,  which  was  two  hundred 
years  ago,  it  will  follow,  that  James  river  must, 
for  many  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands  of  years, 
have  been  running,  at  least  here,  with  a  very 
rapid,  headlong  current;  the  friction  whereof 
must  certainly  have  rendered  the  channel  much 
deeper  than  it  was  at  the  time  of  the  deposition 
of  these  teeth.  The  result  is  clear,  that  the  sur- 
face of  the  stream,  which  even  now,  after  all  this 
10* 


114  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

friction  and  consequent  depression,  is  so  nearly 
on  a  level  with  the  site  of  the  shark's  teeth, 
must,  originally,  have  been  much  higher.  I 
take  this  to  be  an  irrefragable  proof,  that  the  land 
here  was  then  inundated ;  and  as  there  is  no 
ground  between  this  and  the  Atlantic,  higher 
than  that  on  which  Richmond  is  built,  it  seems 
to  me  indisputably  certain,  that  the  whole  of 
this  beautiful  country  was  once  covered  with  a 
dreary  waste  of  water.* 

*  An  elegant  and  well  informed  writer  on  the  theory  of  the 
earth,  under  the  signature  of  "  An  Inquirer,"  whose  remarks 
were  suggested  by  the  perusal  of  this  letter  of  the  British 
Spy,  observes  that  sea  shells  and  other  marine  substances 
are  found  in  every  explored  part  of  the  world,  "  on  the  lofti- 
est mountains  of  Europe  and  the  still  loftier  Andes  of  South 
America."  As  the  British  Spy  was  not  writing  a  regular 
and  elaborate  treatise  on  the  origin  of  the  earth,  he  did  not 
deem  it  material  to  congregate  all  the  facts  which  have  been 
seen,  and  supposed,  in  relation  to  this  subject. 

Whether  the  British  Spy  is  to  be  considered  as  an  Eng- 
lishman of  rank  on  a  tour  through  America,  and  writing  the 
above  letter  in  Richmond  to  his  friend  in  London;  or 
whether  he  is  to  be  considered  as  one  of  our  own  citizens 
disposed  to  entertain  the  people  of  Richmond  and  its  vicinity 
with  a  light  and  amusing  speculation  on  the  origin  of  their 
country,  in  either  instance  it  was  both  more  natural,  and 
more  interesting  that  the  speculation  should  appear  to  have 
grown  out  of  recent  facts  discovered  in  their  own  town  or 
neighbourhood,  and  with  which  they  are  all  supposed  to  be 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  115 

To  what  curious  and  interesting  reflections 
does  this  subject  lead  us?  Over  this  hill  on 
which  I  am  now  sitting  and  writing  at  my  ease, 
and  from  which  I  look  with  delight  on  the 
landscape  that  smiles  around  me — over  this  hill 
and  over  this  landscape,  the  billows  of  the  ocean 
have  rolled  in  wild  and  dreadful  fury,  while  the 
leviathan,  the  whale  and  all  the  monsters  of  the 
deep,  have  disported  themselves  amid  the  fearful 
tempest. 

Where  was  then  the  shore  of  the  ocean? 
From  this  place,  for  eighty  miles  to  the  west- 
ward, the  ascent  of  the  country  is  very  gradual ; 
to  and  even  up  the  Blue  Ridge,  marine  shells 
and  other  phenomena  are  found,  which  demon- 
strate that  that  country  too,  has  been  visited  by 
the  ocean.  How  then  has  it  emerged  ?  Has 
it  been  by  a  sudden  convulsion?  Certainly 
not.  No  observing  man,  who  has  ever  tra- 
velled from  the  Blue  Ridge  to  the  Atlan- 
tic, can  doubt  that  this  emersion  has  been 
effected  by  very  slow  gradations.  For  as  you 
advance  to  the  east,  the  proofs  of  the  former  sub- 
mersion of  the  country  thicken  upon  you.  On 

conversant,  than  on  distant  and  controvertible  facts,  which 
it  was  not  important  to  the  inquiry,  whether  they  knew  or 
believed,  or  not 


116  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

the  shores  of  York  river,  the  bones  of  whales 
abound ;  and  I  have  been  not  a  little  amused  in 
walking  on  the  sand  beach  of  that  river  during 
the  recess  of  the  tide,  and  looking  up  at  the  high 
cliff  or  bank  above  me,  to  observe  strata  of  sea 
shells  not  yet  calcined,  like  those  which  lay  on 
the  beach  under  my  feet,  interspersed  with  strata 
of  earth  (the  joint  result,  no  doubt,  of  sand  and 
putrid  vegetables)  exhibiting  at  once  a  sample  ol 
the  manner  in  which  the  adjacent  soil  had  been 
formed,  and  proof  of  the  comparatively  recent 
desertion  of  the  waters. 

Upon  the  whole,  every  thing  here  tends  to  con- 
firm the  ingenious  theory  of  Mr.  Buffon ;  that 
the  eastern  coasts  of  continents  are  enlarged  by 
the  perpetual  revolution  of  the  earth  from  west 
to  east,  which  has  the  obvious  tendency  to  con- 
glomerate the  loose  sands  of  the  sea  on  the 
eastern  coast ;  while  the  tides  of  the  ocean, 
drawn  from  east  to  west,  against  the  revolving 
earth,  contribute  to  aid  the  process,  and  hasten 
the  alluvion.  But  admitting  the  Abbe  Raynal's 
idea,  that  America  is  a  far  younger  country  than 
either  of  the  other  continents,  or  in  other  words, 
that  America  has  emerged  long  since  their  for« 
mation,  how  did  it  happen  that  the  materials, 
which  compose  this  continent,  were  not  accumu 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  117 

lated  on  the  eastern  coast  of  Asia  ?  Was  it.  that 
the  present  mountains  of  America,  then  protu- 
berances on  the  bed  of  the  ocean,  intercepted  a 
part  of  the  passing  sands  which  would  otherwise 
have  been  washed  on  the  Asiatic  shore,  and  thus 
became  the  rudiments  of  this  vast  continent  ?  If 
so,  America  is  under  much  greater  obligations  to 
her  barren  mountains,  than  she  has  hitherto 
supposed. 

But  while  Mr.  Buffon's  theory  accounts  very 
handsomely  for  the  enlargement  of  the  eastern 
coast,  it  offers  no  kind  of  reason  for  any  exten- 
sion of  the  western  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  very 
causes  assigned,  to  supply  the  addition  to  the 
eastern,  seem  at  first  view  to  threaten  a  diminu- 
tion of  the  western  coast.  Accordingly,  Mr. 
Buffon,  we  see,  has  adopted  also  the  latter  idea  ; 
and,  in  the  constant  abluvion  from  the  western 
coast  of  one  continent,  has  found  a  perennial 
source  of  materials  for  the  eastern  coast  of  that 
which  lies  behind  it.  This  last  idea,  however, 
by  no  means  quadrates  with  the  hypothesis,  that 
the  mountains  of  America  formed  the  original 
stamina  of  the  continent ;  for,  on  the  latter  sup- 
position, the  mountains  themselves  would  consti- 
tute the  western  coast ;  since  Mr.  Buffon's  theory 
precludes  the  idea  of  any  accession  in  that  quar- 


118  THE    BRITSIH    SPY. 

ter.  But  the  mountains  do  not  constitute  the 
western  coast.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  a 
wider  extejit  of  country  between  the  great  moun- 
tains in  North  America,  and  the  Pacific  or  the 
northern  oceans,  than  there  is  between  the  same 
mountains  and  the  Atlantic  ocean.  Mr.  Buffon's 
theory,  therefore,  however  rational  as  to  the 
eastern,  becomes  defective,  as  he  presses  it,  in 
relation  to  the  western  coast ;  unless,  to  accom- 
modate the  theory,  we  suppose  the  total  abrasion 
of  some  great  mountain  which  originally  consti- 
tuted the  western  limit,  and  which  was  itself,  the 
embryon  of  this  continent.  But  for  many  rea- 
sons, and  particularly  the  present  contiguity  to 
Asia,  at  one  part,  where  such  a  mountain, 
according  to  the  hypothesis,  must  have  run,  the 
idea  of  any  such  limit  will  be  thought  rather  too 
extravagant  for  adoption.  The  fact  is,  that  Mr. 
Buffon  has  considered  his  theory  rather  in  its 
operation  on  a  continent  already  established,  than 
on  the  birth  or  primitive  emersion  of  a  conti- 
nent from  the  ocean. 

As  to  the  western  part  of  this  continent,  1 
mean  that  which  lies  beyond  the  Alleghany 
mountains,  if  it  were  not  originally  gained  from 
the  ocean,  it  has  received  an  accumulation  ol 
earth  by  no  means  less  wonderful.  Far  beyond 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  119 

the  Ohio,  in  piercing  the  earth  -for  water,  the 
stumps  of  trees,  bearing  the  most  evident  impres- 
sions of  the  axe,  and  on  one  of  them  the  rust  of 
consumed  iron,  have  been  discovered  between 
ninety  and  a  hundred  feet  below  the  present 
surface  of  the  earth.  This  is  a  proof,  by  the  by, 
not  only  that  this  immense  depth  of  soil  has 
been  accumulated  in  that  quarter  ;  but  that  that 
new  country,  as  the  inhabitants  of  the  Atlantic 
states  call  it,  is,  indeed,  a  very  ancient  one ;  and 
that  North  America  has  undergone  more  revolu- 
tions in  point  of  civilization,  than  have  heretofore 
been  thought  of,  either  by  the  European  or 
American  philosophers.  That  part  of  this  con- 
tinent, which  borders  on  the  western  ocean, 
being  almost  entirely  unknown,  it  is  impossible 
to  say  whether  it  exhibit  the  same  evidence  ol 

» 

immersion  which  is  found  here.  M'Kenzie, 
however,  the  only  traveller  who  has  ever  pene- 
trated through  this  vast  forest,  records  a  curious 
tradition  among  some  of  the  western  tribes  of 
Indians,  to  wit :  that  the  world  was  once  covered 
with  water.  The  tradition  is  embellished,  as 
usual  with  a  number  of  very  highly  poetical  fic- 
tions. The  fact,  which  I  suppose  to  be  couched 
under  it,  is  the  ancient  submersion  of  that  part 
of  the  continent,  which  certainly  looks  much 


120  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

more  like  a  world  than  the  petty  territory  that 
was  inundated  by  Eucalion's  flood.  If  I  remem- 
ber aright,  for  I  cannot  immediately  refer  to  the 
book,  Stith,  in  his  History  of  Virginia,  has  re- 
corded a  similar  tradition  among  the  Atlantic 
tribes  of  Indians.  I  have  no  doubt  that  if 
M'Kenzie  had  been  as  well  qualified  for  scientific 
research,  as  he  was  undoubtedly  honest,  firm  and 
persevering,  it  would  have  been  in  his  power  to 
have  thrown  great  lights  on  this  subject,  as  it 
relates  to  the  western  country. 

For  my  own  part,  while  I  believe  the  present 
mountains  of  America  to  have  constituted  the 
original  stamina  of  the  continent,  I  believe  at 
the  same  time,  the  western  as  well  as  the  eastern 
country  to  be  the  effect  of  alluvion ;  produced 
too  by  the  same  causeg :  the  rotation  of  the 
earth,  and  the  planetary  attraction  of  the  ocean. 

The  perception  of  this  will  be  easy  and  simple, 
if,  instead  of  confounding  the  mind,  by  a  wide 
view  of  the  whole  continent  as  it  now  stands, 
we  carry  back  our  imaginations  to  the  time  of 
its  birth,  and  suppose  some  one  of  the  highest 
pinnacles  of  the  Blue  Ridge  to  have  just  emerged 
above  the  surface  of  the  sea.  Now  whether  the 
rolling  of  the  earth  to  the  east  give  to  the  ocean, 
which  floats  loosely  upon  its  bosom,  an  actual 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  121 

counter-current,  to  the  west,*  which  is  occasion- 
ally further  accelerated  by  the  motion,  of  the 
tides  in  that  direction,  or  whether  this  be  not  the 

*  This  idea,  which  is  merely  stated  hypotheticatty,  is  con- 
sidered, by  the  Inquirer,  as  having  been  a  position  absolutely 
taken  by  the  British  Spy :  and  as  the  reverse  principle,  (to 
wit,  that  the  motion  of  tjje  waters  is  taken  from  and  corres- 
ponds with  that  of  the  solid  earth,)  is  so  well  established,  he 
concludes  that  it  must  have  been  contested  by  the  British 
Spy  through  mere  inadvertence.  But,  for  my  part,  I  do  not 
perceive  how  this  hypothetical  idea  of  the  British  Spy  is,  at 
all,  in  collision  with  the  doctrine  of  the  diurnal  or  annual 
revolution  of  the  terraqueous  globe. 

The  British  Spy  could  not  have  been  guilty  of  so  great  an 
aosurdity  as  to  intend  that  the  waters  of  the  ocean  deserted 
their  bed  and  broke  over  the  eastern  coasts  and  lofty  moun- 
tains of  opposing  continents,  in  order  to  maintain  their  actual 
counter-current  to  the  west.  It  must  have  been  clear  to  him, 
that  the  ocean,  keeping  its  bed,  must  attend  the  motion  of  the 
earth,  "  not  only  on  its  axis,  but  in  its  orbit."  But  the  ques- 
tion here  is  not  as  to  the  position  of  the  whole  ocean  as  it 
relates  to  the  whole  earth;  the  question  is  merely  as  to  the  loco- 
motion of  the  particles  of  the  ocean,  among  themselves.  For 
although  the  ocean,  as  well  as  the  solid  earth,  must  perform  a 
complete  revolution  around  their  common  axis  once  in  twenty- 
four  hours,  it  does  not  follow,  as  I  take  it,  that  the  globules 
of  the  fluid  ocean  must,  all  this  time,  remain  as  fixed  as  the 
atoms  of  the  solid  earth :  they  certainly  may  and  certainly 
have,  from  some  cause  or  other,  a  subordinate  motion  among 
themselves,  frequently  adverse  to  the  general  motion  of  the 
globe ;  to  wit,  a  current  to  the  west.  The  atmosphere  belongs 
as  much  to  this  globe  as  the  waters  of  the  ocean  do :  that  i» 
11 


£22  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

case  ;  still  to  our  newly  emerged  pinnacle,  which 
is  whirled,  by  the  earth's  motion,  through  the 
waters  of  the  deep,  the  consequences  will  be  the 

to  say,  it  cannot  any  more  than  the  ocean  fly  off  and  attach 
itself  to  any  other  planet.  It  feels,  like  the  ocean,  the  gravi- 
tating power  of  the  earth  -and  the  attraction  of  the  neigh- 
bouring planets.  It  is  affected,  no  ^joubt,  very  sensibly  (at 
least  the  lower  region  of  it)  by  the  earth's  diurnal  rotation, 
and  like  the  ocean,  is  compelled  to  attend  her  in  her  annual 
journey  around  the  sun.  But  what  of  this?  Does  the 
atmosphere  remain  fixed  in  such  a  manner,  as  that  the  part 
of  it,  which  our  antipodes  are  respiring  at  this  moment,  is  to 
furnish  our  diet,  our  pabulum  vittz,  twelve  hours  hence  1 
Certainly  not;  the  atoms  which  compose  the  atmosphere 
are,  we  know,  in  spite  of  the  earth's  diurnal  and  annual  mo- 
tion, agitated  and  impelled  in  every  direction ;  and  so  also, 
we  equally  well  know,  are  the  waters  of  the  ocean. 

If  the  Inquirer,  when  he  says  that  "  the  motion  of  the 
earth  is  communicated  to  every  part  of  it,  whether  solid  or 
fluid,"  intend  that  the  motion  of  the  loose  and  fluid  particles 
of  the  ocean  take,  from  the  earth,  a  flux  among  themselves  to 
the  east,  the  result  would  be  an  actual  current  to  the  east; 
which  is  not  pretertded.  If  he  mean,  that  the  globules  of  the 
ocean,  unaffected  by  any  other  cause  than  the  motion  of  the 
earth,  would  always  maintain  the  same  position  in  relation 
to  each  other,  he  may,  indeed,  allege  a  principle  which  is 
well  established ;  but  as  it  does  not  meet  the  approbation  of 
my  reason,  and  as  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  reading  merely 
that  I  may  understand  and  believe,  I  must  beg  permission  to 
enter  my  dissent  to  the  principle.  It  would  be  difficult,  if 
not  impossible,  so  close  as  we  are  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  earth's  attraction,  to  invent  any  apparatus  by  which  a 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  123 

same  as  if  there  were  this  actual  and  strong 
current.  For  while  the  waters  will  be  continually 
accumulated  on  the  eastern  coast  of  this  pinna- 
decisive  experiment  could  be  made  on  this  subject.  But,  by 
the  way  of  illustration,  let  us  suppose  the  earth  at  rest ;  let 
us  suppose  the  atmosphere,  by  the  hand  of  the  great  Chymist 
who  raised  it  into  its  present  aeriform  state,  once  more  re- 
duced to  a  fluid;  let  us  suppose  it,  like  a  great  ocean,  to  sur- 
round the  earth  within  the  torrid  zone,  (partitioned  at  right 
angles,  by  two  or  three  mountains  running  from  north  to 
to  south)  and  all  its  parts  reposing  in  a  halcyon  calm :  let 
us  then  suppose  the  earth  whirled  on  its  axis  to  the  east, 
what  would  be  the  probable  effect  1  it  is  clear  that  the  lower 
region  of  this  superincumbent  ocean  would  be  most  strongly 
bound  by  the  earth's  attraction ;  it  is  equally  clear  that  the 
stratum  of  globules,  immediately  in  contact  with  the  earth, 
would  adhere  more  strongly  thereto,  than  to  the  fluid  stratum 
which  rested  upon  it;  while  this  adhesion  to  the  surface  of 
the  earth  would  be  assisted  by  the  many  rugged  protuber- 
ances on  that  surface.  Hence  the  first  motion  of  the  earth,  the 
lowest  part  of  this  circumambient  ocean,  being  most  power- 
fully attracted  and  attached  to  the  earth,  would  slide  under 
the  fluid  mass  above  it,  and  thereby  produce  an  inequality 
in  the  upper  surface  of  the  water  itself;  an  elevation  in  the 
eastern,  a  concavity  in  the  western  side  of  each  partition; 
while  the  waters,  from  their  tendency  to  seek  .their  level, 
would  strive  to  restore  the  balance,  by  falling  constantly  from 
east  to  west. 

Whether  this  effect  would  continue  for  ever,  or  how  long  it 
would  continue  in  our  oceans  as  they  are  at  present  arranged, 
it  is  not  easy  to  solve.  But  that  a  current  from  the  east  to  the 
west  would  be  at  first  produced,  is  as  evident  as  the  light  of 


124  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

cle,  it  is  obvious  that  on  the  western  coast, 
(protected,  as  it  would  be,  from  the  current,  by 
the  newly  risen  earth,)  the  waters  will  always  be 

heaven ;  if  it  be  denied,  I  demand  the  solution  of  the  follow- 
ing phenomenon :  if  a  plate  be  filled  with  oil  or  other  fluid, 
and  the  plate  be  then  drawn  in  any  direction,  how  does  it 
happen  that  the  fluid  will  manifest  a  tendency  to  flow  in  the 
opposite  direction ;  insomuch  that  if  the  draught  of  the  plate 
be  sudden,  the  fluid,  running  rapidly  over  the  adverse  edge 
of  the  plate,  shall  discharge  itself  completely ;  leaving  little 
behind  but  the  inferior  stratum  1  I  take  it,  that  the  man 
who  solves  this  phenomenon,  satisfactorily,  will  be  compelled 
to  resort  to  principles,  which,  when  applied  to  our  oceans, 
resting  loosely  as  they  do  on  the  earth  which  rolls  under 
them,  would  inevitably  produce  a  western  current ;  and  this 
current  once  produced  it  will  be  difficult  to  say  why  and  when 
it  should  cease.  A  current  thus  produced  would  be  unequal 
rrom  the  nature  of  its  cause,  at  various  depths :  it  would  be 
subject  to  temporary  affections  and  alterations  near  its  sur- 
face, by  the  winds,  the  tides  and  the  diversified  shapes  of  the 
coasts  on  which  the  ocean  rolls.  The  general  tendency, 
however,  of  the  great  mass  of  the  waters  would  be  to  the 
west. 

I  see  no  sound  reason  in  renouncing  Mr.  Buflfon's  theory 
either  on  account  of  the  eloquent  and  beautiful  manner  in 
which  it  is  explained ;  nor  because  it  has  long  had  its  just 
portion  of  admirers ;  nor  because  there  are  other  more  mo- 
dern theories.  "While  we  are  children,  it  may  be  well  enough 
to  lie  passively  on  our  backs  and  permit  others  to  prepare  and 
feed  us  with  the  pap  of  science ;  but  when  our  own  judgments 
and  understandings  have  gained  their  maturity,  it  benovea 
us.  instead  of  being  "  a  feather  for  every  wind  that  blowa,* 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  125 

comparatively  low  and  calm.  The  reault  is 
'clear.  The  sands,  borne  along  by  the  ocean's 
current  over  the  northern  and  southern  extremi- 
ties of  this  pinnacle,  will  always  have  a  tendency 
to  settle  in  the -calm  behind  it;  jand  thus,  by 

instead  of  floating  impotently  before  the  capricious  current 
of  fashion  and  opinion,  to  heave  out  all  our  anchors;  to  take  a 
position  from  which  nothing  shall  move  us  but  reason  and 
truth,  not  novelty  and  fashion.  In  the  progress  of  science 
many  principles,  in  my  opinion,  have  been  dropped  to  make 
way  for  others,  which  are  newer  but  less  true.  And  among 
them  Mr.  Buffon's  theory  of  the  earth.  The  effect  of  allu- 
vion is  so  slow,  that  any  one  generation  is  almost  unable  to 
perceive  the  change  wrought  by  it ;  hence,  many  people, 
unable  to  sit  down  and  reflect  on  the  wonders  which  time 
2an  do,  fly  off  with  a  kind  of  puerile  impatience,  and  resort 
to  any  thing,  even  a  bouleversemente  of  a  whole  continent, 
rather  than  to  depend  on  so  slow  and  imperceptible  an  ope- 
ration as  that  of  alluvion.  This  is  not  philosophical.  Neither 
on  the  other  hand  would  it  be  philosophical  to  reject  a  theory 
because  it  might  be  new  and  unsupported  by  a  name.  On 
the  contrary,  the  man  who,  on  any  branch  of  philosophy 
starts  a  new  hypothesis,  which  has  even  the  guise  of  reason, 
confers  a  benefit  on  the  world ;  for  he  enlarges  the  ground  of 
thought,  and  although  not  immediately  in  the  temple  of  truth 
nimself,  may  have  dropped  a  hint,  an  accidental  clew,  which 
may  serve  to  lead  others  to  the  door  of  the  temple.  In  this 
spirit,  I  not  only  excuse,  but  am  grateful  even  for  the  wildest 
of  Dr.  Darwin's  philosophical  chimeras.  In  the  same  spirit, 
I  offer,  without  the  expectation  of  its  final  adoption,  the  idea 
suggested  by  this  note  as  to  the  cause  of  a  western  current 
tl* 


126  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

perpetual  accumulations,  form  a  western  coast, 
more  rapidly  perhaps  than  an  eastern  one ;  as" 
we  may  see  in  miniature,  by  the  capes  and 
shallows  collected  by  the  still  water,  on  each 
side,  at  the  mouths  of  creeks,  or  below  rocks,  in 
the  rapids  of  a  river. 

After  this  new-born  point  of  earth  had  gained 
some  degree  of  elevation,  it  is  probable  that  suc- 
cessive coats  of  vegetation,  according  to  Dr. 
Darwin's  idea,  springing  up,  then  falling  and 
dying  on  the  earth,  paid  an  annual  tribute  to 
the  infant  continent,  while  each  rain  which  fell 
upon  it,  bore  down  a  part  of  its  substance  and 
assisted  perpetually  in  the  enlargement  of  its 
area. 

It  is  curious  that  the  arrangement  of,  the 
mountains  both  in  North  and  South  America, 
as  well  as  the  shape  of  the  two  continents,  com- 
bine to  strengthen  the  preceding  theory.  For 
the  mountains,  as  you  will  perceive  on  inspecting 
your  maps,  run  in  chains  from  north  to  south ; 
thus  opposing  the  widest  possible  barrier  to  the 
sands,  as  they  roll  from  east  to  west.  The 
shape  of  the  continent  is  just  that  which'  would 
naturally  be  expected  from  such  an  origin  :  that 
is,  they  lie  along,  collaterally,  with  the  moun- 
tains. As  far  north  as.  the  country  is  well 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  127 

known,  these  ranges  of  mountains  are  observed ; 
and  it  is  remarkable,  that  as  soon  as  the  Cordil- 
leras terminate  in  the  south,  the  continent  of 
South  America  ends :  where  they  terminate 
in  the  north,  the  continent  dwindles  to  a  narrow 
isthmus. 

Assuming  this  theory  as  correct,  it  is  amusing 
to  observe  the  conclusions  to  which  it  will  lead  us. 

As  the  country  is  supposed  to  have  been 
formed  by  gradual  accumulations,  and  as  these 
accumulations  were  most  probably  equal  or 
nearly  so  in  every  part,  it  follows  that,  broken 
as  this  country  is  in  hills  and  dales,  it  has  as- 
sumed no  new  appearance  by  its  emersion ;  but 
that  the  figure  of  the  earth's  surface  is  the  same 
throughout,  as  well  where  it  is  now  covered  by 
the  waters  of  the  ocean  as  where  it  has  been 
already  denudated.  So  that  Mr.  Boyle's  moun- 
tains in  the  sea,  cease  to  have  any  thing  wonderful 
in  them. 

Connected  with  this,  it  is  not  an  improbable 
conclusion,  that  new  continents  and  islands  are 
now  forming  on  the  bed  of  the  ocean.  Perhaps, 
at  some  future  day,  lands  may  emerge  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  Antarctic  circle,  which  by 
progressive  accumulations  and  a  consequent 
increase  of  weight,  may  keep  a  juster  balance 


128  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

between  the  poles,  and  produce  a  material  diffe» 
ence  in  our  astronomical  relations.  The  navi- 
gators of  that  day  will  be  as  successful  in  their 
discoveries  in  the  southern  seas,  as  Columbus 
was  heretofore  in  the  northern.  For  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  there  has  been  a  time  when 
Columbus,  if  he  had  lived,  would  have  found 
his  reasonings,  on  the  balance  of  the  earth, 
fallacious  ;  and  would  have  sought  these  seas  for 
a  continent,  as  much  in  vain,  as  Drake,  Anson, 
Cook  and  others,  encouraged  perhaps  by  similar 
reasoning,  have  since  sought  the  ocean  of  the 
south. 

If  Mr.  Buffon's  notion  be  correct,  that  the 
eastern  coast  of  one  continent  is  perpetually 
feeding  on  the  western  coast  of  that  which  lies 
before  it,  the  conclusion  is  inevitable,  that  the 
present  materials  of  Europe  and  Africa,  and  Asia, 
in  succession,  will  at  some  future  day,  compose 
the  continents  of  North  and  South  America ; 
while  the  latter,  thrown  on  the  Asiatic  shore, 
will  again  make  a  part,  and,  in  time,  the  whole 
of  that  continent,  to  which  by  some  philoso- 
phers, they  are  supposed  to  have  been  originally 
attached.  It  is  equally  clear  that,  by  this  means, 
the  continents  will  not  only  exchange  their  ma 
terials,  but  their  position ;  so  that,  in  process  o/ 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  129 

time,  they  must  respectively  make  a  tour  around 
the  globe,  maintaining  still  the  same  ceremo- 
nious distance  from  each  other,  which  they  now 
hold. 

According  to  my  theory,  which  supposes  an 
alluvion  on  the  western  as  well  as  the  eastern 
coast,  the  continents  and  islands  of  the  earth, 
will  be  caused,  reciprocally,  to  approximate,  and 
(if  materials  enough  can  be  found  in  the  bed  of 
the  ocean,  or  generated  by  any  process  of  nature) 
ultimately  to  unite.  Our  island  of  Great  Britain, 
therefore,  at  some  future  day,  and  in  proper  per- 
son, will  probably  invade  the  territory  of  France. 
In  the  course  of  this  work  of  alluvion,  as  it  re- 
lates to  this  country,  the  refulgent  waters  of  the 
Atlantic  will  be  forced  to  recede  from  Hampton 
Roads  and  the  Chesapeake ;  the  beds  whereof 
will  become  fertile  valleys,  or,  as  they  are  called 
here,  river  bottoms ;  while  the  lands  in  the  lower 
district  of  the  state,  which  are  now  only  a  very 
few  feet  above  the  surface  of  the  sea,  will  rise 
into  majestic  eminences,  and  the  present  sickly 
site  of  Norfolk  be  converted  into  a  high  and 
salubrious  mountain.  I  apprehend,  however, 
that  the  present  inhabitants  of  Norfolk  would  be 
extremely  unwilling  to  have  such  an  effect 
wrought  in  their  day ;  since  there  can  be  little 


130  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

doubt  that  they  prefer  their  present  commercial 
situation,  incumbered  as  it  is  by  the  animal 
visits  of  the  yellow  fever,  to  the  elevation  and 
health  of  the  Blue  Ridge. 

In  the  course  of  this  process,  too,  of  which  I 
have  been  speaking,  if  the  theory  be  correct,  the 
gulf  of  Mexico  will  be  eventually  filled  up,  and 
the  West  India  islands  consolidated  with  the 
American  continent. 

These  consequences,  visionary  as  they  may 
now  appear,  are  not  only  probable,  but,  if  the 
alluvion  which  is  demonstrated  to  have  taken 
place  already,  should  continue,  they  are  inevita- 
ble. There  is  very  little  probability  that  the 
isthmus  of  Darien,  which  connects  the  two  conti- 
nents, is  coeval  with  the  Blue  Ridge  or  the  Cordil- 
leras ;  and  it  requires  only  a  continuation  of  the 
cause  which  produced  the  isthmus,  to  effect  the 
repletion  of  the  gulf  and  the  consolidation  of  the 
islands  with  the  continent. 

But  when?  I  am  possessed  of  no  data  whereby 
the  calculations  can  be  made.  The  depth  at 
which  Herculaneum  and  Pompeia  were  found 
to  be  buried  in  the  course  of  sixteen  hundred 
years,  affords  us  no  light  on  this  inquiry ;  because 
their  burial  was  effected  not  by  the  slow  alluvion 
and  accumulation  of  time,  but  by  the  sudden 


THE    BRITISH    SPV.  13J 

ind  repeated  eruptions  of  Vesuvius.  As  little 
are  we  aided  by  the  repletion  of  the  earth  around 
the  Tarpein  rock  in  Rome;  since  that  reple- 
tion was  most  probably  effected  in  a  very  great 
degree,  by  the  materials  of  fallen  buildings.  And 
besides,  the  original  height  of  the  rock  is  not 
ascertained  with  any  kind  of  precision  ;  histo- 
rians having,  I  believe,  merely  informed  us,  that 
it  was  sufficiently  elevated  to  kill  the  criminals 
who  were  thrown  from  its  summit. 

But  a  truce  witk  philosophy.  Who  could  have 
believed  that  the  skeleton  of  an  unwieldy  whale, 
and  a  few  mouldering  teeth  of  a  shark,  would 
have  led  me  such  a  dance  ! 

Adieu,  my  dear  S ,  for  the  present. 

May  the  light  of  heaven  continue  to  slime  around 
you! 


132  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 


LETTER  III. 

RichmonL,  September  15. 

You  inquire  into  the  state  of  your  favourite 

art  in  Virginia.  Eloquence,  My  dear  S , 

has  few  successful  votaries  hete :  I  mean  elo- 
quence of  the  highest  order;  such  as  that  to 
which,  not  only  the  bosom  of  your  friend,  but 
the  feelings  of  the  whole  British  nation  bore  evi- 
dence, in  listening  to  the  charge  of  the  Begums 
in  the  prosecution  of  Warren  Hastings. 

In  the  national  and  state  legislatures,  as  well 
as  at  the  various  bars  in  the  United  States,  I 
have  heard  great  volubility,  much  good  sense, 
and  some  random  touches  of  the  pathetic ;  but 
in  the  same  bodies,  I  have  heard  a  far  greater 
proportion  of  puerile  rant,  or  tedious  and  disgust- 
ing inanity.  Three  remarks  are  true  as  to 
almost  all  their  orators. 

First,  They  have  not  a  sufficient  fund  of  gen- 
eral knowledge. 

Secondly,  They  have  not  the  habit  of  ciose 
and  solid  thinking. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  133 

Thirdly,  They  do  not  aspire  at  original  orna- 
ments. 

From  these  three  defects,  it  most  generally 
results,  that  although  they  pour  out,  easily 
enough,  a  torrent  of  words,  yet  these  are  destitute 
of  the  light  of  erudition,  the*  practical  utility  of 
just  and  copious  thought,  or  those  novel  and 
beautiful  allusions  and  embellishments,  with 
which  the  very  scenery  of  the  country  is  so 
highly  calculated  to  inspire  them. 

The  truth  is,  my  dear  S  .  .  .  ,  that  this  scarci- 
ty of  genuine  and  sublime  eloquence,  is  not 
confined  to  the  United  States :  instances  of  it  in 
any  civilized  country  have  always  been  rare 
indeed.  Mr.  Blair  is  certainly  correct  in  the 
opinion,  that  a  state  of  nature  is  most  favourable 
to  the  higher  efforts  of  the  imagination,  and  the 
more  unrestrained  and  noble  raptures  of  the 
heart.  Civilization,  wherever  it  has  gained 
ground,  has  interwoven  with  society  a  habit  of 
artificial  and  elaborate  decorum,  which  mixes  in 
every  operation  of  life,  deters  the  fancy  from  every 
bold  enterprise,  and  buries  nature  under  a  load  of 
hypocritical  ceremonies.  A  man,  therefore,  in 
order  to  be  eloquent,  h,as  to  forget  the  habits  in 
which  he  has  been  educated ;  and  never  will  he 

touch  his  audience  so  exquisitely  as  when  he 
12 


134  THE    BRITISH    SPY 

goes  back  to  the  primitive  simplicity  of  the  patri- 
archal age. 

I  have  said  that  instances  cf  genuine  and 
sublime  eloquence  have  always  been  rare  in 
every  civilized  country.  It  is  true  that  Tully 
and  Pliny  the  yoftnger  have,  in  their  epistles, 
represented  Rome,  in  their  respective  days,  as 
swarming  with  orators  of  the  first  class ;  yet 
from  the  specimens  which  they  themselves  have 
left  us,  I  am  led  to  entertain  a  very  humble  opin- 
ion of  ancient  eloquence. 

Demosthenes  we  know  has  pronounced,  not 
the  chief,  but  the  sole  merit  of  an  orator  to  con- 
sist in  delivery,  or  as  Lord  Verulam  translates 
it,  in  action,  and,  although  I  know  that  the 
world  would  proscribe  it  as  a  literary  heresy,  I 
cannot  help  believing  Tully's  merit  to  have  been 
principally  of  that  kind.  For  my  own  part,  I 
confess  very  frankly,  that  I  have  never  met  with 
any  thing  of  his,  which  has,  according  to  my 
taste,  deserved  the  name  of  superior  eloquence. 
His  style,  indeed,  is  pure,  pDlished,  sparkling, 
full  and  sonorous  ;  and  perhaps  deserves  all  the 
encomiums  which  have  been  bestowed  on  it. 
But  an  oration,  certainly,  ,no  more  d  serves  the 
title  of  superior  eloquence,  because  ts  style  is 
ornamented,  than  the  figure  of  an  Af  olio  would 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  135 

deserve  the  epithet  of  elegant,  merely  from  the 
superior  texture  and  flow  of  the  drapery.  In 
reading  an  oration,  it,  is  the  mind  to  which  I 
look.  It  is  the  expanse  and  richness  of  the  con- 
ception itself,  which  I  regard,  and  not  the  glit- 
tering tinsel  wherein  it  may  be  attired.  Tully's 
orations,  examined  in  this  spirit,  have,  with  me, 
sunk  far  below  the  grade  at  which  we  have 
been  taught  to  fix  them. 

It  is  true,  that  at  school,  I  learned,  like  the 
rest  of  the  world,  to  lisp,  "  Cicero  the  orator  :* 
but  when  I  grew  up  and  began  to  judge  for 
myself,  I  opened  his  volumes  again  and  looked 
in  vain  for  that  sublimity  of  conception,  which 
fills  and  astonishes  the  mind  ;  that  simple  pathos 
which  finds  such  a  sweet  welcome  in  every 
breast ;  or  that  resistless  enthusiasm  of  unaffected 
passion,  which  takes  the  heart  by  storm.  On 
the  contrary,  let  me  confess  to  you  that,  what 
ever  may  be  the  cause,  to  me  he  seemed  cold 
and  vapid,  and  uninteresting  and  tiresome :  not 
only  destitute  of  that  compulsive  energy  of  thought 
which  we  look  for  in  a  great  man,  but  even  void 
of  the  strong,  rich  and  varied  colouring  of  a  supe- 
rior fancy.  His  masterpiece  of  composition,  his 
work,  De  Oratore,  is,  in  my  judgment,  extremely 
light  and  unsubstantial;  and  in  truth  is  little 


136  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

more  than  a  tissue  of  rhapsodies,  assailing  the 
ear  indeed  with  pleasant  sounds,  but  leaving  few 
clear  and  useful  traces  on  the  mind.  Plutarch 
speaks  of  his  person  as  all  grace,  his  voice  as 
perfect  music,  his  look  and  gesture  as  all  alive, 
striking,  dignified  and  peculiarly  impressive; 
and  I  incline  to  the  opinion,  that  to  these  theat- 
rical advantages,  connected  with  the  just  reliance 
which  the  Romans  had  in  his  patriotism  and 
good  judgment,  their  strong  interest  in  the  sub- 
jects discussed  by  him,  and  their  more  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  idiom  of  his  language,  his 
fame  while  living,  arose  ;  and  that  it  has  been 
since  propagated  by  the  schools  on  account  of  the 
classic  purity  and  elegance  of  his  style. 

Many  of  these  remarks  are,  in  my  opinion, 
equally  applicable  to  Demosthenes.  He  deserves, 
indeed,  the  distinction  of  having  more  fire  and 
less  smoke  than  Tully.  But  in  .the  majestic 
march  of  the  mind,  in  the  force  of  thought,  and 
splendour  of  imagery,  1  think,  both  the  orators 
of  Greece  and  Rome  eclipsed  by  more  than  one 
person  within  his  majesty's  dominions. 

Heavens !  how  should  I  be  anathematized 
and  excommunicated  by  every  pedagogue  in 
Great  Britain,  if  these  remarks  were  made  public  ! 
Spirits  of  Car  and  of  Ascham  !  have  mercy  upon 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  137 

me  !  Wo  betide  the  hand  that  plucks  the  wizard 
beard  of  hoary  error  !  From  lisping  infancy  to 
stooping  age,  the  reproaches,  the  curses  of  the 
world  shall  be  upon  it !  But  to  you,  my  dearest 

S my  friend,  my  preceptor,  to  you  I 

disclose  my  opinions  with  the  same  freedom,  and 
for  the  same  purpose,  that  I  would  expose  my 
wounds  to  a  surgeon.  To  you,  it  is  peculiarly 
proper  that  I  should  make  my  appeal  on  this 
subject ;  for  when  eloquence  is  the  theme,  your 
name  is  not  far  off. 

Tell  me  then,  you,  who  are  capable  of  doing 
it,  what  is  this  divine  eloquence.  What  the 
charm  by  which  the  orator  binds  the  senses  of 
his  audience ;  by  which  he  attunes  and  touches 
and  sweeps  the  human  lyre,  with  the  resistless 
sway  and  master  hand  of  a  Timotheus  ?  Is  not 
the  whole  mysteiy  comprehended  in  one  word, 
SYMPATHY  7  I  mean  not  merely  that  tender 
passion  which  quavers  the  lip  and  fills  the  eye 
of  the  babe  when  he  looks  on  the  sorrows  and 
tears  of  another ;  but  that  still  more  delicate  and 
subtile  quality  by  which  we  passively  catch  the 
very  colours,  momentum  and  strength  of  the 
mind,  to  whose  operations  we  are  attending; 
which  converts  every  speaker,  to  whom  we  listen, 

into  a  Procrustes,  and  enables  him,  for  the  mo- 
12* 


138  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

ment,  to  stretch  or  lop  our  faculties  to  fit  the 
standard  of  his  own  mind. 

This  is  a  very  curious  subject.  I  am  some- 
times half  inclined  to  adopt  the  notion  stated  by 
our  great  Bacon  in  his  original  and  masterly 
treatise  on  the  advancement  of  learning  "  Fas- 
cination," says  he,  "is  the  power  and  act  of 
imagination  intensive  upon  other  bodies  than 
the  body  of  the  imaginant;  wherein  the  school 
of  Paracelsus  and  the  disciples  of  pretended  na- 
*ural  magic  have  been  so  intemperate,  as  that 
they  have  exalted  the  power  of  the  imagination 
to  be  much  one  with  the  power  of  miracle-work- 
ing faith  :  others  that  draw  nearer  to  probability, 
calling  to  their  view  the  secret  passages  of  things, 
and  especially  of  the  contagion  that  passeth  from 
body  to  body,  do  conceive  it  should  likewise  be 
agreeable  to  nature,  that  there  should  be  some 
transmissions  and  operations  from  spirit  to 
spirit,  without  the  mediation  of  the  senses  ; 
whence  the  conceits  have  grown,  now  almost 
made  civil,  of  the  mastering  spirit,  and  the  force 
of  confidence,  and  the  like."  This  notion  is 
further  explained  in  his  Sylva  Sylvarum,  where- 
in he  tells  a  story  of  an  Egyptian  soothsayer, 
who  made  Mark  Anthony  believe  that  his 
genius,  which  was  otherwise  brave  and  confi- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  139 

cfen(,  was,  in  the  presence  of  Octavianus  Caesar- 
poor  and  cowardly  :  and  therefore  he  advised 
him  to  absent  himself  as  much  as  he  could,  and 
remove  far  from  him.  It  turned  out,  however, 
that  this  soothsayer  was  suborned  by  Cleopatra, 
who  wished  Anthony's  company  in  Egypt. 

Yet,  if  there  be  not  something  of  this  secret 
intercourse  from  spirit  to  spirit,  how  does  it  hap- 
pen that  one  speaker  shall  gradually  invade  and 
benumb  all  the  faculties  of  my  soul  as  if  I  were 
handling  a  torpedo  ;  while  another  shall  awaken 
and  arouse  me,  like  the  clangour  of  the  martial 
trumpet?  How  does  it  happen  that  the  first  shall 
infuse  his  poor  spirit  into  my  system,  lethargize 
my  native  intellects  and  bring  down  my  powers 
exactly  to  the  level  of  his  own  ?  or  that  the  last 
shall  descend  upon  me  like  an  angel  of  light, 
breathe  new  energies  into  my  frame,  dilate  my 
soul  with  his  own  intelligence,  exalt  me  into  a 
new  and  nobler  region  of  thought,  snatch  me 
from  the  earth  at  pleasure,  and  rap  me  to  the 
seventh  heaven  1  And,  what  is  still  more  won- 
derful, how  does  it  happen  that  these  different 
effects  endure  so  long  after  the  agency  of  the 
speaker  has  ceased  ?  Insomuch,  that  if  I  sit 
down  to  any  intellectual  exercise,  after  listening 
to  the  first  speaker,  my  performance  shall  be 


140  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

unworthy  even  of  me,  and  the  num-fish  visible 
and  tangible  in  every  sentence ;  whereas,  if  1 
enter  on  the  same  amusement,  after  having 
attended  to  the  last  mentioned  orator,  I  shall  be 
astonished  at  the  elevation  and  vigour  of  my 
own  thoughts ;  and  if  I  meet,  accidentally,  with 
the  same  production,  a  month  or  two  afterward, 
when  my  mind  has  lost  the  inspiration,  shall 
scarcely  recognise  it  for  my  own  work. 

Whence  is  all  this  ?  To  me  it  would  seem 
that  it  must  proceed  either  from  the  subtile  com- 
merce between  the  spirits  of  men,  which  Lord 
Verulam  notices,  and  which  enables  the  speaker 
thereby  to  identify  his  hearer  with  himself;  or 
else  that  the  mind  of  man  possesses,  independ- 
ently of  any  volition  on  the  part  of  its  proprie- 
tor, a  species  of  pupillary  faculty  of  dilating  and 
contracting  itself,  in  proportion  to  the  pencil  of 
the  rays  of  light  which  the  speaker  throws  upon 
it ;  which  dilatation  or  contraction,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  eye,  cannot  be  immediately  and  abruptly 
altered. 

Whatever  may  be  the  solution,  the  fact,  I 
think,  is  certainly  as  I  have  stated  it.  And  it  is 
remarkable  that  the  same  effect  is  produced, 
though  perhaps  in  a  less  degree,  by  perusing 
books  into  which  different  degrees  of  spirit  and 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  14  > 

genius  have  been  infused.  I  am  acquamteo. 
with  a  gentlemen  who  never  sits  down  to  a  com- 
position, wherein  he  wishes  to  shine,  without 
previously  reading,  with  intense  application,  half 
a  dozen  pages  of  his  favourite  Bolingbroke. 
Having  taken  the  character  and  impulse  of  that 
writer's  mind,  he  declares  that  he  feels  his  pen  to 
flow  with  a  spirit  not  his  own ;  and  that,  if,  in 
the  course  of  his  work,  his  powers  begin  to  lan- 
guish, he  finds  H  easy  to  revive  and  charge  them 
afresh  from  the  same  never-failing  source. 

If  these  things  be  not  visionary,  it  becomes 
important  to  a  man,  for  a  new  reason,  what 
books  he  reads,  and  what  company  he  keeps, 
since,  according  to  Lord  Verulam's  notion,  an 
'influx  of  the  spirits  of  others  may  change  the 
native  character  of  his  heart  and  understanding, 
before  he  is  aware  of  it ;  or,  according  to  the 
other  suggestion,  he  may  so  habitually  contract 
the  pupil  of  his  mind,  as  to  be  disqualified  for  the 
comprehension  of  a  great  subject,  and  fit  only 
for  microscopic  observations.  Whereas  by  keep- 
ing the  company  and  reading  the  works  of  men 
of  magnanimity  and  genius  only,  he  may  re 
ceive  their  qualities  by  subtile  transmission,  and 
eventually,  get  the  eye,  the  ardour  and  the  enter- 
prise of  an  eagle. 


142  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

But  whither  am  I  wandering?  Permit,  me 
to  return.  Admitting  the  correctness  of  the 
principles  formerly  mentioned,  it  would  seem  to 
be  a  fair  conclusion  that  whenever  an  oratoi 
wishes  to  know  what  effect  he  has  wrought  on 
his  audience,  he  should  coolly  and  conscientiously 
propound  to  himself  this  question :  Have  I, 
myself,  throughout  my  oration,  felt  those  clear 
and  cogent  convictions  of  judgment,  and  that 
pure  and  exalted  fire  of  the  soul,  with  which  I 
wished  to  inspire  others  1  For,  he  may  rely  on 
it,  that  he  can  no  more  impart  (or  to  use  Bacon's 
word,  transmit)  convictions  and  sensations  which 
he  himself  has  not,  at  the  time,  sincerely  felt, 
than  he  can  convey  a  clear  title  to  property,  in 
which  he  himself  has  no  title. 

This  leads  me  to  remark  a  defect  which  I 
have  noticed  more  than  once  in  this  country. 
Following  up  too  closely  the  cold  conceit  of  the 
Roman  division  of  an  oration,  the  speakers  set 
aside  a  particular  part  of  their  discourse,  usually 
the  peroration,  in  which,  they  take  it  into  theii 
heads  that  they  will  be  pathetic.  Accordinglj 
when  thsy  reach  this  part,  whether  it  be  prompt 
ed  by  the  feelings  or  not,  a  mighty  bustle  com- 
mences. The  speaker  pricks  up  his  ears,  erects 
his  chest,  tosses  his  arms  with  hysterical  vehe- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  143 

raence,  and  says  every  thing  which  he  supposes 
ought  to  affect  his  hearers ;  but  it  is  all  in  vain ; 
for  it  is  obvious  that  every  thing  he  says  is 
prompted  by  the  head ;  and,  however  it  may 
display  his  ingenuity  and  fertility,  however  it 
may  appeal  to  the  admiration  of  his  hearers,  it 
will  never  strike  deeper.  The  hearts  of  the 
audience  will  refuse  all  commerce  except  with 
the  heart  of  the  speaker ;  nor,  in  this  commerce 
is  it  possible,  by  any  disguise,  however  artful,  to 
impose  false  ware  on  them.  However  the  speaker 
may  labour  to  seem  to  feel,  however  near  he  may 
approach  to  the  appearance  of  the  reality,  the 
heart  nevertheless  possesses  a  keen  unerring 
sense,  which  never  fails  to  detect  the  imposture. 
It  would  seem  as  if  the  heart  of  man  stamps  a 
secret  mark  on  all  its  effusions,  which  alone  can 
give  them  currency,  and  which  no  ingenuity, 
however  adroit,  can  successfully  counterfeit. 

I  have  been  not  a  little  diverted,  here,  in  lis- 
tening to  some  fine  orators,  who  deal  almost 
entirely  in  this  pathos  of  the  head.  They  prac- 
tise the  start,  the  pause — make  an  immense 
parade  of  attitudes  and  gestures,  and  seem  to 
imagine  themselves  piercing  the  heart  with  a 
thousand  wounds.  The  heart  all  the  time, 
developing  every  trick  that  is  played  to  cajole 


144  THE    BRITISH    SPF. 

her,  and  sitting  serene  and  composed,  looks  on 
and  smiles  at  the  ridiculous  pageant  as  it  passes. 

Nothing  can,  in  my  opinion,  be  more  ill- 
judged  in  an  orator,  than  to  indulge  himself  in 
this  idle,  artificial  parade.  It  is  particularly  un- 
fortunate in  an  exordium.  It  is  as  much  as  to 
say  caveat  auditory  and  for  my  own  part,  the 
moment  I  see  an  orator  rise  with  this  menacing 
majesty ;  assume  a  look  of  solemn  wisdom ; 
stretch  forth  his  right  arm,  like  the  rubens  dex- 
ter of  Jove ;  and  hear  him  open  his  throat  in 
deep  and  tragic  tone ;  I  feel  myself  involuntarily 
braced,  and  in  an  attitude  of  defence,  as  if  I  were 
going  to  take  a  bout  with  Mendoza. 

The  Virginians  boast  of  an  orator  of  nature, 
whose  manner  was  the  reverse  of  all  this  ;  and 
he  is  the  only  orator  of  whom  they  do  boast, 
with  much  emphasis.  I  mean  the  celebrated 
Patrick  Henry,  whom  I  regret  that  I  came  to  this 
country  too  late  to  see.  I  cannot,  indeed,  easily 
forgive  him,  even  in  the  grave,  his  personal 
instrumentality  in  separating  these  fair  colonies 
from  Great  Britain.  Yet  I  dare  not  withhold 
from  the  memory  of  his  talents,  the  tribute  of 
respect  to  which  they  are  so  justly  entitled. 

I  am  told  that  his  general  appearance  and 
manners  were  those  of  a  plain  farmer  or  planter 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  145 

of  the  back  country ;  that,  in  this  character,  he 
always  entered  on  the  exordium  of  an  ora- 
tion; disqualifying  himself,  with  looks  and 
expressions  of  humility  so  lowly  and  unassum- 
ing, as  threw  every  heart  off  its  guard  and 
induced  his  audience  to  listen  to  him,  with  the 
same  easy  openness  with  which  they  would  con- 
verse with  an  honest  neighbour :  but,  by  and  by, 
when  it  was  little  expected,  he  would  take  a 
flight  so  high/  and  blaze  with  a  splendour  so 
heavenly,  as  filled  them  with  a  kind  of  religious 
awe,  and  gave  him  the  force  and  authority  of  a 
prophet. 

You  remember  this  was  the  manner  of  Ulys- 
ses ;  commencing  with  the  look  depressed  and 
hesitating  voice.  Yet  I  dare  say  Mr.  Henry  was 
directed  to  it,  not  by  the  example  of  Ulysses,  of 
which  it  is  very  probable,  that,  at  the  commence- 
ment of  his  career,  at  least,  he  was  entirely  igno- 
rant :  but  either  that  it  was  the  genuine, 
trembling  diffidence,  without  which,  if  Tully 
may  be  believed,  a  great  orator  never  rises ;  or 
else  that  he  was  prompted  to  it  by  his  own  sound 
judgment  and  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
human  heart. 

I  have  seen  the  skeletons  of  some  of  his  ora- 
tions. The  periods  and  their  members  are  short, 
13 


140  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

quick,  eager,  palpitating,  and  are  manifestly  the 
extemporaneous  effusions  of  a  mind  deeply  con- 
vinced, and  a  heart  inflamed  with  zeal  for  the 
propagation  of  those  convictions.  They  afford, 
however,  a  very  inadequate  sample  of  his  talents: 
the  stenographer  having  never  attempted  to  fol- 
low him,  when  he  arose  in  the  strength  and 
awful  majesty  of  his  genius. 

I  am  not  a  little  surprised  to  find  eloquence  of 
this  high  order  so  negligently  cultivated  in  the 
United  States.  Considering  what  a  very  power- 
ful engine  it  is  in  a  republic,  and  how  peculiarly 
favourable  to  its  culture  the  climate  of  republics 
has  been  always  found,  I  expected  to  have  seen 
in  America  more  votaries  to  Mercury  than  even 
to  Plutus.  Indeed  it  would  be  so  sure  a  road  both 
to  wealth  and  honours,  that  if  I  coveted  either, 
and  were  an  American,  I  would  bend  all  my 
powers  to  its  acquirement,  and  try  whether  I 
could  not  succeed  as  well  as  Demosthenes  in 
vanquishing  natural  imperfections.  Ah !  my 
dear  S  .  .  .  . ,  were  you  a  citizen  of  this  country ! 
You,  under  the  influence  of  whose  voice  a  parlia- 
ment of  Great  Britain  has  trembled  and  shud 
dered,  while  her  refined  and  enlightened  galleries 
have  wept  and  fainted  in  the  excess  of  feeling ! 
what  might  you  not  accomplish  ?  But,  for  the 


THE    BRITISH    SPY  147 

honour  of  my  country,  I  am  much  better  pleased 
that  you  are  a  Briton. 

On  the  subject  of  Virginian  eloquence,  you 
shall  hear  further  from  me.  In  the  mean  time 
adieu,  my  S  .  .  .  . ,  my  friend,  my  father. 


148  THE    BRITISH    SPY 


TO  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  VIRGINIA  ARGUS. 

Sir, 

As  the  theory  of  the  earth  derives  importance 
from  its  dignity,  if  not  from  its  utility,  and  has 
of  late  years  given  birth  to  many  ingenious  specu- 
lations, I  shall  offer  no  apology  for  troubling  you 
with  the  following  remarks,  which  were  sug- 
gested by  an  essay,  in  last  Wednesday's  Argus, 
enticed  "The  British  Spy." 

Sea  shells  and  other  marine  productions,  dif- 
fering in  no  respect  from  those  which  now  exist 
in  their  native  element,  have  been  found  in  every 
explored  part  of  the  globe.  They  are  found,  too, 
in  the  highest  as  well  as  in  the  lowest  situations : 
on  the  loftiest  mountains  of  Europe,  and  the  still 
loftier  Andes  of  South  America.  To  go  no 
farther  from  home,  our  own  Allegheny  abounds 
with  them.  How  were  these  substances  sepa- 
rated from  their  parent  ocean?  Do  they  still 
remain  in  their  primitive  beds?  and  has  the 
water  deserted  them  ?  or  have  they  deserted  the 
water?  These  questions,  differently  answered, 
give  rise  to  different  theories. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  149 

Among  these  theories,  that  of  the  Count  de 
Buffbn  stand  conspicuous.  Adorned  with  all 
the  graces  of  style,  and  borrowing  a  lustre  from 
his  other  splendid  productions,  it  has  long  had 
its  full  share  of  admirers.  After  exhibiting  new 
proofs  of  a  former  submersion,  in  which  he  dis- 
covers great  ingenuity,  and  is  certainly  entitled 
to  great  praise,  he  proceeds  to  account  for  the 
earth  in  its  present  form,  by  a  natural  operation 
of  the  ocean  which  covered  it.  This  hypothesis, 
which  the  British  Spy  has  partially  adopted,  is 
liable  to  many  objections,  which,  to  me  at  least, 
are  insuperable.  I  will  briefly  notice  some  of  the 
most  obvious. 

Although  alluvion  may  account  for  small 
accessions  of  soil  nearly  on  a  level  with  the 
ocean,  it  cannot  explain  the  formation  of  moun- 
tains. It  is  contrary  to  all  the  known  laws  of 
nature  to  suppose  that  a  fluid  could  lift,  so  far 
above  its  own  level,  bodies  many  times  heavier 
than  itself. 

Again,  if  the  ocean,  as  Buffon  maintains,  have 
a  tendency  to  wear  away  all  points  and  emi- 
nences over  which  it  passes,  it  would  exert  this 
tendency  on  the  mountains  itself  had  formed  ;  or 
rather,  it  would  prevent  their  formation.  It  is 

surely  inconsistent  *o  suppose  the  ocean  would 
13* 


150  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

produce  mountains,  and  at  the  same  time  wear 
away  those  that  already  existed.  Indeed,  the 
author  himself  seemed  to  be  aware  of  the  invinci- 
ble objections  to  this  part  of  his  theory,  and  en 
deavours  to  evade  their  force  by  sinking  a  part 
of  the  earth,  in  the  cavity  occasioned  by  which, 
the  superfluous  waters  find  a  sufficient  receptacle; 
thus  abandoning  the  agency  of  alluvion,  and 
adopting  a  new  and  totally  different  hypothesis. 
But  while  marine  substances  are  found  far 
above  their  proper  element,  vegetable  bodies  are 
often  found  far  below  the  seat  of  their  production. 
In  Europe  they  often  meet  with  wood,  at  great 
depths  of  the  earth,  in  a  state  of  perfect  pre- 
servation ;  and  in  sinking  wells,  in  this  country, 
trunks  of  trees  frequently  obstruct  the  progress 
of  the  work.  A  Mr.  Peters,  of  Harrison  county, 
not  long  since,  met  with  pieces  of  pine,  twenty 
feet  below  the  surface,  on  a  hill  of  considerable 
elevation,  and  at  a  distance  from  any  water- 
course. In  this  town,  leaves,  believed  to  be  those 
of  the  hazle,  were  found  mingled  with  marine 
productions.  These  vegetable  matters  must 
have  been  once  exposed  to  air,  heat  and  light, 
to  have  attained  the  state  in  which  they  were 
found;  and  the  same  exposure  would  have 
afterwards  caused  their  decay,  unless  their  inter- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  151 

ment  had  been  sudden  and  complete.  Bones, 
shells  and  other  extraneous  substances,  are  often 
found  bedded  in  marble  and  other  hard  bodies ; 
and  I  myself  have  seen  a  specimen  of  those 
human  bones,  which  in  the  fortifications  of  Gi- 
braltar are  often  found  incorporated  with  the  solid 
rock.  What  less  than  some  great  throe  of 
nature,  or  some  mighty  agent,  now  dormant  and 
unknown,  could  have  produced  the  general  bou- 
leversement  which  these  appearances  indicate  ? 

But  the  hypothetical  reasoning  of  Monsieur  de 
Buffon  is  founded  on  a  fact  no  less  hypothetical. 
The  arguments  in  favour  of  a  general  current 
to  the  west,  are,  I  confess,  very  cogent,  and 
would  be  convincing  but  for  the  following 
difficulties : 

1.  If  the  operation  of  the  sun  and  moon,  in 
producing  alternate  elevations  and  depressions 
of  the  ocean,  produce  also  a  current,  the  force  of 
this  current  will  be  in  proportion  to  the  mass  of 
water  thus  raised  and  depressed.  Now,  contrary 
to  the  assertion  of  Buffon,  the  tides  are  highest  in 
high  latitudes,  and  gradually  diminish  towards 
the  equator,  where  I  believe  they  hardly  exceed 
a  foot.  By  the  observations  of  Captain  Cook, 
the  same  difference  exists  in  the  Pacific  ocean 
as  was  long  known  in  the  Atlantic.  If  then 


152  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

there  be  a  general  current  to  the  west,  it  should 
be  strongest  in  high  latitudes  and  weakest  under 
the  line.  But  the  contrary  is  the  fact.  No 
general  current  to  the  west  is  found  without  the 
tropics ;  and  that  which  prevails  irregularly 
between  them  is  usually  and  rationally  ascribed 
to  the  trade  winds. 

2.  If  this  supposed  current  existed,  its  effect 
would  be  readily  perceived  by  our  navigators  in 
the  difference  of  their  passages  to  and  from  Eu- 
rope ;  but,  the  one  before  referred  to  excepted, 
they  meet  with  nothing  of  the  kind.     A  current, 
at  the  rate  of  one  mile  an  hour,  would  make  a 
difference  of  near  two  thousand  miles  between 
an  ordinary  voyage  to  and  from  Europe. 

3.  By   actual  observations,   detailed  in   the 
second  volume  of  the  Philosophical  Transactions, 
the  prevailing  currents  about  some  islands  in  the 
Atlantic  ocean  are  to  the  east.     At  Owhyhee, 
which  lies  within  the  tropics,  and  nearly  in  the 
middle  of  the  Pacific  ocean,  Captain  Cook  ob- 
served the  current  to  set,  without  any  regularity, 
sometimes  to  the  west  and  sometimes  to  the  east. 

4.  But  one  argument  may  be  deemed  conclu- 
sive.    The  air  is  a  fluid  at  least  as  sensible  to 
the  gravitating  power  of  the  planet  as  the  ocean, 
and  like  that,  must  also  have  its  tides.     If,  on 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  153 

the  one  hand,  the  tides  of  the  air  are  more  liable 
to  be  disturbed  by  its  compressibility,  by  partial 
rarefaction  or  condensation,  its  obstacles,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  a  free  motion  round  the  earth, 
are  comparatively  inconsiderable.  Its  course  is 
somewhat  impeded,  but  never  arrested.  If  then 
such  a  general  law  existed,  as  is  contended  for, 
there  would  be,  either  a  steady  east  wind,  or 
greater  flow  of  air  from  that  quarter  than  from 
the  west,  in  every  climate  of  the  globe.  But 
this  is  the  case  only  between  the  tropics  ;  and 
the  prevalence  of  the  east  wind,  in  that  region, 
has  been  almost  universally  ascribed  to  rarefac- 
tion by  heat,  since  no  other  solution  can  account 
for  the  sea  and  land  breezes,  monsoons,  and 
other  phenomena  of  those  climates. 

From  these  considerations  I  am  disposed  to 
think,  that  there  is  no  uniform  current  to  the 
west ;  or  that  it  is  too  inconsiderable  to  have  any 
effect  on  the  figure  of  the  earth.  Admitting  the 
existence  of  a  general  current,  it  may  be  merely 
superficial.  Currents,  whose  force  gradually 
diminishes  from  the  surface  downwards,  are 
known  to  exist;  and  the  practice  of  seamen, 
when  they  wish  "to  try  the  current,"  is  evidently 
founded  on  the  belief  that  they  do  not  extend  to 
great  depths.  The  accession  of  water  by  the 


154  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

tides  is  too  small  to  require  a  general  movement 
of  the  ocean  to  its  bottom. 

In  weighing  the  probability  of  a  general  cur- 
rent to  the  west,  I  have  confined  myself  to  the 
operation  of  the  tides ;  as  the  mere  motion  of 
the  earth,  either  in  its  orbit,  or  on  its  axis,  can 
have  no  possible  effect  this  way.  This  motion 
is  communicated  to  every  part  of  the  earth, 
whether  solid  or  fluid ;  and  while  it  continues 
equable,  they  are  both  affected  alike,  and  their 
relative  situations  remain  the  same.  So  well 
established  a  principle  must  have  been  contested 
by  the  British  Spy  through  mere  inadvertence. 

If,  after  all  that  has  been  said,  arguments,  in 
favour  of  a  current  from  the  surface  to  the  bot- 
tom, be  deemed  conclusive,  it  is  worth  while  to 
inquire  into  its  probable  effects. 

The  British  Spy  supposes  that  this  general 
current  enlarges  both  the  eastern  and  western 
coasts  of  continents;  in  which  hypothesis,  he 
differs  less  from  Buffon  than  that  elegant  but 
fanciful  theorist  differs  from  himself.  For,  in  his 
heory  on  the  formation  of  the  planets,  he  ad- 
vances that  the  ocean  is  continually  wearing  away 
me  eastern  coasts,  and  by  a  process,  which  he 
does  not  even  hint  at,  enlarging  the  western ; 
and  that  Asia  is  an  older  countrv  than  Europe. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  155 

But  in  a  subsequent  work,  his  Epochs,  he  main- 
tains the  direct  reverse,  and  mentions  the  abrupt- 
ness of  the  western,  and  the  greater  number  of 
islands  of  the  eastern  coasts,  as  evidences  that 
the  former  have  been  abraded  by  the  ocean. 

But  I  find  neither  reasoning  nor  fact  to  war- 
rant either  of  these  conclusions.  It  has  been 
observed  that  a  shore  forms  a  convex  outline 
where  it  gains  on  the  ocean,  and  a  concave 
where  it  loses.  On  inspecting  the  map  of  the 
world,  we  perceive  nothing  which  by  this  stand- 
ard indicates  a  greater  increase  on  one  continent 
than  on  the  other,  or  even  any  increase  at  all. 
We  see  no  vast  prominence  of  coast  under  the 
•  line ;  but  on  taking  both  shores  of  the  ocean,  in 
both  hemispheres,  into  comparison,  we  find  that 
the  convexities  on  the  western  side  are  balanced 
by  equal  convexities  on  the  eastern.  Besides  it 
is  clear  that  in  proportion  as  the  contents  of  the 
ocean  are  cast  on  the  land,  in  the  same  degree 
it  becomes  deeper,  and  its  shores  more  steep  and 
abrupt.  This  is  as  true  of  the  ocean  as  it  is  of 
a  ditch.  By  this  increasing  declivity  of  grow- 
ing shores,  the  additional  gravity  to  be  overcome 
will,  in  time,  check  the  alluvion  of  any  current, 
however  strong.  An  opposite  equalizing  tend- 
ency occurs,  where  the  coast  is  worn  away  by 


156  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

the  ocean.  Successive  fragments  of  rocks  and 
precipices,  by  sloping  the  shore,  gradually  abate 
the  impetus  of  the  waters,  until  the  coast  attains 
that  due  inclination  by  which  the  gravity  to  be 
overcome  exactly  counterbalances  the  projectile 
force  of  the  ocean.  Without  doubt,  small  varia- 
tions continually  take  place  in  the  outline  of  all 
coasts  ;  but  the  equilibrium  for  which  I  contend, 
is  founded  on  correct  principles ;  and  every  coast, 
whether  eastern  or  western,  approaches  to  that 
form,  if  it  have  not  already  attained  it,  when 
what  it  loses  by  the  ocean  will  be  precisely 
equal  to  what  it  gains. 

It  should  be  remarked  that  Buffon,  in  his  last 
addition  to  his  Theorie,  conscious  of  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  alluvion  in  the  formation  of  continents, 
supposes  that  the  cavities,  with  which  the  earth 
abounds,  are  continually  falling  in,  and  from  the 
consequent  retreat  of  the  ocean,  that  continents 
are  continually  approximating.  This  conjecture 
certainly  renders  his  theory  more  consistent ;  but 
it  substitutes  a  cause  for  the  immersion  of  the 
earth  totally  different  from  his  first  hypothesis  of 
alluvion  :  and  it  has  been  that  alone  which  I 
have  considered.  This  last  supposition  ts  merely 
gratuitous;  as  neither  observation  nor  history 
"fiord  us  any  proofs  of  the  existence  of  these 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  157 

immense  caverns,  or  of  any  general  retreat  of 
the  ocean. 

For  the  reasons  which  I  have  given,  and  for 
many  more,  the  theory  of  this  celebrated  natur- 
alist has  long  been  deemed  both  improbable  and 
inadequate,  and  is  now  confined  to  the  merit, 
(no  small  merit  by  the  by,)  of  having  collected 
valuable  materials,  and  detected  the  fallacies  of 
Burnet,  Woodward  and  other  dreamers  on  the 
subject.  It  has  accordingly  given  place  to  new 
theories,  more  consistent  at  least,  if  not  more 
satisfactory. 

Volcanoes,  and  intense  heat  in  the  centre  of 
the  earth,  the  recrements  of  animals  and  vegeta- 
bles, have  been  employed,  as  separate  or  joint 
agents,  by  the  speculators  on  this  curious  sub- 
ject. Dr.  Button,  by  far  the  most  celebrated  of 
these,  supposes  the  exuviae  of  shell  fish  to  have 
constituted  the  basis  of  the  earth ;  and  that  it 
has  assumed  its  present  form  and  appearance 
by  the  fusion  produced  by  the  earth's  internal 
heat.  He  supports  this  opinion  by  a  train  of 
elaborate  reasoning,  and  a  chemical  examination 
of  the  bodies  which  compose  the  outer  crust  of 
the  earth.  I  regret  that  I  am  acquainted  with 
the  work  only  at  second  hand.  But  I  believe 

14 


158  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

that  even  this  theory,  ingenious  and  scientific 
as  it  is,  gives  little  more  general  satisfaction 
than  those  which  preceded  it.  It  is,  in  com- 
mon with  the  other  late  hypothesis,  opposed 
by  the  fine  reasoning  of  Buffon,  in  favour  of  the 
immediate  action  of  water  in  producing  the  cor- 
respondent angles  of  mountains,  their  waving 
outline,  parallel  strata,  &c.,  as  well  as  by  many 
of  the  facts  I  have  glanced  at ;  and  it  is,  more- 
over, said  to  be  contradicted  by  some  chemical 
experiments,  at  once  pertinent  and  clear. 

On  the  whole,  then,  I  fear  we  have  not  yet 
arrived  at  that  certainty  which  will  satisfy  the 
inquirer  who  is  neither  enamoured  with  the  fan- 
cies of  his  own  brain,  nor  seduced  by  the  elo- 
quence of  others ;  and  therefore,  to  use  the 
words  of  an  elegant  writer  of  our  own  country, 
who  discovers  the  same  acuteness,  the  same  phi- 
losophic caution  on  this  as  on  other  occasions, 
"  we  must  be  contented  to  acknowledge  that  this 
great  phenomenon  is,  yet,  unsolved.  Ignorance 
is  preferable  to  error ;  and  he  is  less  remote  from 
the  truth  who  believes  nothing,  than  he  who 
believes  what  is  wrong." 

Before  we  can  obtain  a  sober  conviction  on  the 
subject,  or  even  properly  compare  the  proba- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  159 

bility  of  the  respective  theories,  many  questions 
now  contested  must  be  settled ;  new  facts 
must  be  discovered  ;  new  powers  of  nature 
developed. 

How  far  does  the  power  of  aqueous  solution 
and  of  crystallization  extend  ?  Does  the  earth 
borrow  all  its  heat  from  the  sun  ?  or  has  it  a  pe- 
rennial source  in  its  own  bowels?  are  there 
general  currents  in  the  ocean  ?  if  so,  what  are 
their  courses,  periods  and  strength  ?  It  is  cleat 
that  every  rain  that  falls,  every  wind  that  blows, 
transports  some  portion  of  the  earth  we  inhabit 
to  the  ocean.  Is  there  any  secret  and  magical 
process  in  nature,  as  some  have  supposed,  by 
which  this  perpetual  waste  is  perpetually  re- 
paired ?  and  do  mountains  receive  accessions  by 
rain,  by  attraction,  or  any  other  mode  equal  to 
what  they  evidently  lose  ?  Again,  water  is  con- 
verted into  vegetables,  vegetables  into  animals, 
and  both  of  these  again  into  earth.  Is  this  same 
earth  reconverted  into  water,  and  by  one  unva- 
ried round  of  mutation,  each  preserved  in  its 
present  proportion  to  all  eternity  ? 

Science,  with  an  ardour  of  inquiry  never  be- 
fore known,  and  a  daily  increase  of  materials, 
advances  with  hasty  steps  to  answer  these  pre 


160  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

lirainary  questions;  but  till  they  are  solved  1 
incline  to  think  that  every  theory  is  premature 
and  shall,  therefore,  remain  satisfied  with  the 
safe,  but  humble  character  of 

AN  INQUIRER. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  161 


LETTER  IV. 

Richmond,  September  22. 

1  HAVE  just  returned,  my  dear  S , 

from  an  interesting  morning's  ride.  My  object 
was  to  visit  the  site  of  the  Indian  town,  Pow- 
hatan ;  which  you  will  remember  was  the 
metropolis  of  the  dominions  of  Pocahuntas's 
father,  and,  very  probably,  the  birth-place  of 
that  celebrated  princess. 

The  town  was  built  on  the  river,  about  two 
miles  below  the  ground  now  occupied  by  Rich- 
mond ;  that  is,  about  two  miles  below  the  head 
of  tide  water.  The  land  whereon  it  stood  is,  at 
present,  part  of  a  beautiful  and  valuable  farm 
belonging  to  a  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Wil- 
liam Mayo. 

Aware  of  the  slight  manner  in  which  the 
Indians  have  always  constructed  their  habita- 
tions, I  was  not  at  all  disappointed  in  finding 
no  vestige  of  the  old  town.  But  as  I  traversed 
the  ground  over  which  Pocahuntas  had  so  often 

bounded  and  frolicked  in  the  sprightly  morning 
14* 


162  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

of  her  youth,  I  could  not  help  recalling  the 
principal  features  of  her  history,  and  heaving  a 
sigh  of  mingled  pity  and  veneration  to  her 
memory. 

Good  Heaven!  What  an  eventful  life  was 
hers !  To  speak  of  nothing  else,  the  arrival  of 
the  English  in  her  father's  dominions  must 
have  appeared  (aS  indeed  it  turned  out  to  be)  a 
most  portentous  phenomenon.  It  is  not  easy 
for  us  to  conceive  the  »mazement  and  consterna- 
tion which  must  have  filled  her  mind  and  that 
of  her  nation  at  the  first  appearance  of  our 
countrymen.  Their  great  ship,  with  all  her 
sails  spread,  advancing  in  solemn  majesty  to  the 
shore ;  their  complexion ;  their  dress ;  their  lan- 
guage ;  their  domestic  animals ;  their  cargo  of 
new  and  glittering  wealth  ;  and  then  the  thun 
der  and  irresistible  force  of  their  artillery ;  the 
distant  country  announced  by  them,  far  beyond 
the  great  water,  of  which  the  oldest  Indian  had 
never  heard,  or  thought,  or  dreamed — all  this 
was  so  new,  so  wonderful,  so  tremendous,  that  1 
do  seriously  suppose,  the  personal  descent  of  an 
army  of  Milton's  celestial  angels,  robed  in  light, 
sporting  in  the  bright  beams  of  the  sun  and 
redoubling  their  splendour,  making  divine  har- 
mony with  their  golden  harps,  or  playing  with 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  163 

the  bolt  and  chasing  the  rapid  lightning  of 
heaven,  would  excite  not  more  astonishment  in 
Great  Britain  than  did  the  debarkation  of  the 
English  among  the  aborigines  of  Virginia. 

Poor  Indians !  Where  are  they  now  ?  Indeed, 
my  dear  S ,  this  is  a  truly  afflicting  con- 
sideration. The  people  here  may  say  what 
they  please ;  but,  on  the  principles  of  eternal 
truth  and  justice,  they  have  no  right  to  this 
country.  They  say  that  they  have  bought  it — 
bought  it !  Yes ; — of  whom  1  Of  the  poor 
trembling  natives  who  knew  that  refusal  would 
be  vain  ;  and  who  strove  to  make  a  merit  of  ne- 
cessity by  seeming  to  yield  with  grace,  what 
they*knew  that  they  had  not  the  power  to  retain. 
Such  a  bargain  might  appease  the  conscience  of 
a  gentleman  of  the  green  bag,  "worn  and. 
hackneyed"  in  the  arts  and  frauds  of  his  profes- 
sion ;  but  in  heaven's  chancery,  my  S ,  there 

can  be  little  doubt  that  it  has  been  long  since 
set  aside  on  the  ground  of  duress. 

Poor  wretches  !  No  wonder  that  they  are  so 
implacably  vindictive  against  the  white  people ; 
no  wonder  that  the  rage  of  resentment  is  handed 
down  from  generation  to  generation  ;  no  wonder 
that  the)7  refuse  to  associate  and  mix  perma- 
nently with  their  unjust  and  cruel  invaders  and 


164  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

exterminators ;  no  wonder  that  in  the  unabaling 
spite  and  frenzy  of  conscious  impotence,  they 
wage  an  eternal  war,  as  well  as  they  are  able ; 
that  they  triumph  in  the  rare  opportunity  of 
revenge ;  that  they  dance,  sing  and  rejoice,  as 
the  victim  shrieks  and  faints  amid  the  flames, 
when  they  imagine  all  the  crimes  of  their 
oppressors  collected  on  his  head,  and  fancy  the 
spirits  of  their  injured  forefathers  hovering  over 
the  scene,  smiling  with  ferocious  delight  at  the 
grateful  spectacle,  and  feasting  on  the  precious 
odour  as  it  arises  from  the  burning  blood  of  the 
white  man. 

Yet  the  people,  here,  affect  to  wonder  that  the 
Indians  are  so  very  unsusceptible  of  civilization ; 
or,  in  other  words,  that  they  so  obstinately  refuse 
to  adopt  the  manners  of  the  white  men.  Go, 
Virginians ;  erase,  from  the  Indian  nation,  the 
tradition  of  their  wrongs ;  make  them  forget,  if 
you  can,  that  once  this  charming  country  was 
theirs ;  that  over  these  fields  and  through  these 
forests  their  beloved  forefathers,  once,  in  careless 
gaiety,  pursued  their  sports  and  hunted  their 
game ;  that  every  returning  day  found  them 
the  sole,  the  peaceful,  the  happy  proprietors  of 
this  extensive  and  beautiful  domain.  Make 
them  forget,  too,  if  you  can,  that  in  the  midst 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  165 

of  all  this  innocence,  simplicity  and  bliss — the 
white  man  came ;  and  lo ! — the  animated  chase, 
the  feast,  the  dance,  the  song  of  fearless,  thought- 
less joy  were  over ;  that  ever  since,  they  have 
been  made  to  drink  of  the  bitter  cup  of  humilia- 
tion ;  treated  like  dogs ;  their  lives,  their  liberties, 
the  sport  of  the  white  men  ;  their  country  and 
the  graves  of  their  fathers  torn  from  them,  in 
cruel  succession :  until,  driven  from  river  to  river, 
from  forest  to  forest,  and  through  a  period  of  two 
hundred  years,  rolled  back,  nation  upon  nation, 
they  find  themselves  fugitives,  vagrants  and  stran- 
gers in  their  own  country,  and  look  forward  to 
the  certain  period  when  their  descendants  will 
be  totally  extinguished  by  wars,  driven  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet  into  the  western  ocean,  or 
reduced  to  a  fate  still  more  deplorable  and  horrid, 
the  condition  of  slaves.  Go,  administer  the  cup 
of  oblivion  to  recollections  and  anticipations 
like  these,  and  then  you  will  cease  to  complain 
that  the  Indian  refuses  to  be  civilized.  But 
until  then,  surely  it  is  nothing  wonderful  that  a 
nation  even  yet  bleeding  afresh,  from  the  me- 
mory of  ancient  wrongs,  perpetually  agonized 
by  new  outrages,  and  goaded  into  desperation 
and  madness  at  the  prospect  of  the  certain  ruin 
which  awaits  their  descendants,  should  hate  the 


166  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

authors  of  their  miseries,  of  their  desolation,  their 
destruction ;  should  hate  their  manners,  hate 
their  colour,  their  language,  their  name,  and 
every  thing  that  belongs  to  them.  No :  never, 
until  time  shall  wear  out  the  history  of  their  sor- 
rows and  their  sufferings,  will  the  Indian  be 
brought  to  love  the  white  man,  and  to  imitate 
his  manners. 

Great  God !  To  reflect,  my  S ,  that 

the  authors  of  all  these  wrongs  were  our  own 
countrymen,  our  forefathers,  professors  of  the 
meek  and  benevolent  religion  of  Jesus  !  Oh  !  it 
was  impious ;  it  was  unmanly ;  poor  and  pitiful ! 
Gracious  heaven!  what  had  these  poor  people 
done?  The  simple  inhabitants  of  these  peaceful 
plains,  what  wrong,  what  injury  had  they  offered 
to  the  English  ?  My  soul  melts  with  pity  and 
shame. 

As  for  the  present  inhabitants,  it  must  be 
granted  that  they  are  comparatively  innocent ; 
unless  indeed  they  also  have  encroached  under 
the  guise  of  treaties,  which  they  themselves  have 
previously  contrived  to  render  expedient  or  ne- 
cessary to  the  Indians. 

Whether  this  has  been  the  case  or  not,  I  am 
too  much  a  stranger  to  the  interior  transactions 
tf  this  country  to  decide.  But  it  seems  to  me 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  167 

that  were  I  a  president  of  the  United  States,  1 
would  glory  in  going  to  the  Indians,  throwing 
myself  on  my  knees  before  them,  and  saying  to 
them,  "Indians,  friends,  brothers,  O  !  forgive  my 
countrymen !  Deeply  have  our  forefathers 
wronged  you ;  and  they  have  forced  us  to  con- 
tinue the  wrong.  Reflect,  brothers ;  it  was  not 
our  fault  that  we  were  born  in  your  country  ; 
but  now  we  have  no  other  home  ;  we  have  no 
where  else  to  rest  our  feet.  Will  you  not,  then, 
permit  us  to  remain  ?  Can  you  not  forgive  even 
us,  innocent  as  we  are  ?  If  you  can,  O  !  come 
to  our  bosoms ;  be,  indeed,  our  brothers ;  and 
since  there  is  room  enough  for  us  all,  give  us  a 
home  in  your  land,  and  let  us  be  children  of  the 
same  affectionate  family."  I  believe  that  a  mag- 
nanimity of  sentiment  like  this,  followed  up  by 
a  correspondent  greatness  of  conduct  on  the  part 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  would  go  fur- 
ther to  bury  the  tomahawk  and  produce  a  frater- 
nization with  the  Indians,  than  all  the  presents, 
treaties  and  missionaries  that  can  be  employed; 
dashed  and  defeated  as  these  latter  means  always 
are,  by  a  claim  of  rights  on  the  part  of  the  white 
people  which  the  Indians  know  to  be  false  and 
baseless.  Let  me  not  be  told  that  the  Indians 
are  too  dark  and  fierce  to  be  affected  by  generous 


168  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

and  noble  sentiments.  I  will  not  believe  it 
Magnanimity  can  never  be  lost  on  a  nation 
which  has  produced  an  Alknomok,  a  Logan, 
and  a  Pocahuntas. 

The  repetition  of  the  name  of  this  amiable 
princess  brings  me  back  to  the  point  from 
which  I  digressed.  I  wonder  that  the  Virginians, 
fond  as  they  are  of  anniversaries,  have  instituted 
no  festival  or  order  in  honour  of  her  memory. 
For  my  own  part,  I  have  little  doubt,  from  the 
histories  which  we  have  of  the  first  attempts  at 
colonizing  their  country,  that  Pocahuntas  de- 
serves to  be  considered  as  the  patron  deity  of  the 
enterprise.  When  it  is  remembered  how  long 
the  colony  struggled  to  get  a  footing ;  how  often 
sickness  or  famine,  neglect  at  home,  misman- 
agement here,  and  the  hostilities  of  the  natives, 
brought  it  to  the  brink  of  ruin  ;  through  what  a 
tedious  iapse  of  time,  it  alternately  languished 
and  revived,  sunk  and  rose,  sometimes  hanging 
ike  Addison's  lamp,  "  quivering  at  a  point,"  then 
suddenly  shooting  up  into  a  sickly  and  short- 
lived flame ;  in  one  word,  when  we  recollect  how 
near  and  how  often  it  verged  towards  total  ex- 
tinction, maugre  the  patronage  of  Pocahuntas  ; 
there  is  the  strongest  reason  to  believe  that,  but 
for  her  patronage,  the  anniversary  cannon  of  the 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  169 

Fourth  of  July  would  never  have  resounded 
throughout  the  United  States. 

Is  it  not  probable,  that  this  sensible  and  amia- 
ble woman,  perceiving  the  superiority  of  the 
Europeans,  foreseeing  the  probability  of  the  sub- 
jugation of  her  countrymen,  and  anxious  as  well 
to  soften  their  destiny,  as  to  save  the  needless 
effusion  of  human  blood,  desired,  by  her  marriage 
with  Mr.  Rolfe,  to  hasten  the  abolition  of  all 
distinction  between  Indians  and  white  men ; 
to  bind  their  interests  and  affections  by  the  near- 
est and  most  endearing  ties,  and  to  make  them 
regard  themselves  as  one  people,  the  children 
of  the  same  great  family  ?  If  such  were  her 
wise  and  benevolent  views,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
but  they  were,  how  poorly  were  they  backed  by 
the  British  court?  No  wonder  at  the  resent- 
ment and  indignation  with  which  she  saw  them 
neglected ;  no  wonder  at  the  bitterness  of  the 
disappointment  and  vexation  which  she  ex- 
pressed to  captain  Smith,  in  London,  arising  as 
well  from  the  cold  reception  which  she  herself 
had  met,  as  from  the  contemptuous  and  insult- 
ing point  of  view  in  which  she  found  that  her 
nation  was  regarded. 

Unfortunate  princess  !  She  deserved  a  hap- 
pier fate !  But  I  am  consoled  by  these  refleo 
15 


170  THE    BRITISH    SPT. 

lions :  first,  that  she  sees  her  descendants  among 
the  most  respectable  families  in  Virginia ;  and 
that  they  are  not  only  superior  to  the  false  shame 
of  disavowing  her  as  their  ancestor;  but  that 
they  pride  themselves,  and  with  reason  too,  on 
the  honour  of  their  descent ;  secondly,  that  she 
herself  has  gone  to  a  country,  where  she  finds 
her  noble  wishes  realized ;  where  the  distinction 
of  colour  is  no  more ;  but  where,  indeed,  it  ia 
perfectly  immaterial  "  what  complexion  an  In- 
dian or  an  African  sun  may  have  burned"  on 
the  pilgrim. 

Adieu,  my  dear  S  .  .  .  .  This  train  of  thought 
has  destroyed  the  tone  of  my  spirits ;  when  I 
recover  them  you  shall  hear  further  from  me. 
Once  more,  adieu. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  171 


LETTER  V* 

Richmond,  September  23. 

THIS  town,  my  dear  S ,  is  the  resi- 
dence of  several  conspicuous  characters  ;  some 
of  whose  names  we  have  heard  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  You  shall  be  better  ac- 
quainted with  them  before  we  finish  this  corres 
pondence.  For  the  present  permit  me  to 

introduce  to  your  acquaintance,  the of  the 

commonwealth  of  Virginia,  and  the  ....  of  the 
United  States. 

These  gentlemen  are  eminent  political  oppo- 
nents ;  the  first  belonging  to  the  republican,  the 
latter  leading  the  van  of  the  federal,  party. 
Such  is  the  interest  which  they  both  have  in 
the  confidence  and  affections  of  their  respective 
parties,  that  it  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impos- 

*  The  donee  of  the  manuscript  begs  that  he  may  not  be 
considered  as  responsible  for  the  accuracy  with  which  cer- 
tain characters  are  delineated  in  this  letter.  He  selects  it 
purely  for  the  advantage  which,  he  supposes,  youthful  read- 
ers may  derive  from  the  writer's  reflections  on  the  characters 
attempted  to  be  drawn  by  him. 


172  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

Bible,  for  any  Virginian  to  delineate  either  of 
their  characters  justly.  Friendship  or  hostility 
would  be  almost  sure  to  overcharge  the  picture. 
But  for  me,  I  have  so  little  connexion  with  this 
country,  or  her  concerns,  either  at  present  or  in 
prospect,  that  I  believe  I  can  look  on  her  most 
exalted  characters  without  envy  or  prejudice  of 
any  kind  ;  and  draw  them  with  the  same  cool 
and  philosophic  impartiality,  as  if  I  were  a  so- 
journer  from  another  planet.  If  I  fail  in  the 
delineation,  the  fault  must  be  in  the  hand  or  in 
the  head,  in  the  pencil  or  the  judgment :  and 
not  in  any  prepossession  near  my  heart. 

I  choose  to  bring  those  two  characters  before 
you,  together ;  because  they  exhibit,  with  great 
vivacity,  an  intellectual  phenomenon,  which  I 
have  noticed  more  than  once  before  ;  and  in  the 
solution  of  which  I  should  be  pleased  to  see  your 
pen  employed :  I  mean  the  very  different  cele- 
rity in  the  movement  of  two  sound  minds,  which 
on  all  subjects,  wherein  .there  is  no  mixture  of 
party  zeal,  will  ultimately  come  to  the  same  just 
conclusion.  What  a  pity  it  is,  that  Mr.  Locke, 
while  he  was  dissecting  the  human  understand- 
ing, with  such  skill  and  felicity,  did  not  advert 
to  this  characteristic  variance  in  the  minds  of 
men.  It  would  have  been  in  his  power,  by  de- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  173 

veloping  its  causes  either  to  point  to  the  remedy 
if  it  exist  at  all,  or  to  relieve  the  man  of  slow 
mind,  from  the  labour  of  fruitless  experiments, 
by  showing  the  total  impracticability  of  his  cure. 
But,  to  our  gentlemen ;  and  in  order  that  you 
may  know  them  the  more  intimately,  I  will  en- 
deavour to  prefix  to  each  character  a  portrait  of 
the  person. 

The of  this  commonwealth  is  the 

same who  was,  not  many  years  ago,  the 

at  Paris.  His  present  office  is  suffi- 
cient evidence  of  the  estimation  in  which  he  is 
held  by  his  native  state.  In  his  stature,  he  is 
about  the  middle  height  of  men,  rather  firmly 
set,  with  nothing  further  remarkable  in  his  per- 
son, except  his  muscular  compactness  and  appa- 
rent ability  to  endure  labour.  His  countenance, 
when  grave,  has  rather  the  expression  of  stern- 
ness and  irascibility ;  a  smile  however,  (and  a 
amile  is  not  unusual  with  him  in  a  social  circle,) 
lights  it  up  to  very  high  advantage,  and  gives  it 
a  most  impressive  and  engaging  air  of  suavity 
and  benevolence.  Judging  merely  from  his 
countenance,  he  is  between  the  ages  of  forty-five 
and  fifty  years.  His  dress  and  personal  appear- 
ance are  those  of  a  plain  and  modest  gentleman. 

He  is  a  man  of  soft,  polite  and  even  assiduous 
15* 


174  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

attentions ;  but  these,  although  they  are  alwaya 
well-timed,  judicious,  and  evidently  the  offspring 
of  an  obliging  and  philanthropic  temper,  are 
never  performed  with  the  striking  and  captiva- 
ting graces  of  a  Mariborough  or  a  Bolingbroke. 
To  be  plain,  there  is  often  in  his  manner  an  in- 
artificial and  even  an  awkward  simplicity,  which 
while  it  provokes  the  smile  of  a  more  polished 

person,  forces  him  to  the  opinion  that  Mr 

is  a  man  of  a  most  sincere  and  artless  soul. 

Nature  has  given  him  a  mind  neither  rapid 
nor  rich ;  and  therefore,  he  cannot  shine  on  a 
subject  which  is  entirely  new  to  him.  But  to 
compensate  him  for  this,  he  is  endued  with  a 
spirit  of  generous  and  restless  emulation,  a  judg- 
ment solid,  strong  and  clear,  and  a  habit  of  appli 
cation,  which  no  difficulties  can  shake;  no 
labours  can  tire. 

With  these  aids  simply,  he  has  qualified  himself 
for  the  first  honours  of  this  country ;  and  presents 
a  most  happy  illustration  of  the  truth  of  the  max- 
im, Quisque,  SUCB  fortunes,  faber.  For  his  emu- 
lation has  urged  him  to  perpetual  and  unremitting 
inquiry  ;  his  patient  and  unwearied  industry  has 
concentrated  before  him  all  the  lights  which 
others  have  thrown  on  the  subjects  of  his  con- 
sideration, together  with  all  those  which  his  own 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  175 

mind,  by  repeated  efforts,  is  enabled  to  strike ; 
while  his  sober,  steady  and  faithful  judgment 
has  saved  him  from  the  common  error  of  more 
quick  and  brilliant  geniuses ;  the  too  hasty 
adoption  of  specious,  but  false  conclusions. 

These  qualities  render  him  a  safe  and  an  able 
counsellor.  And  by  their  constant  exertion,  he 
has  amassed  a  store  of  knowledge,  which,  hav- 
ing passed  seven  times  through  the  crucible,  is 
almost  as  highly  corrected  as  human  knowledge 
can  be ;  and  which  certainly  may  be  much 
more  safely  relied  on  than  the  spontaneous  and 
luxuriant  growth  of  a  more  fertile,  but  less  chas- 
tened mind — "  a  wild,  where  weeds  and  flowers 
promiscuous  shoot." 

Having  engaged  very  early,  first  in  the  life  of 
a  soldier,  then  of  a  statesman,  then  of  a  laborious 
practitioner  of  the  law,  and  finally,  again  of  a 
politician,  his  intellectual  operations  have  been 
almost  entirely  confined  to  juridical  and  political 
topics.  Indeed,  it  is  easy  to  perceive,  that  the 
mind  of  a  man,  engaged  in  so  active  a  life 
must  possess  more  native  suppleness,  versa- 
tility and  vigour,  than  that  of  Mr , 

to  be  able  to  make  an  advantageous  tour  of  the 
sciences  in  the  rare  interval  of  importunate  duties. 
It  is  possible  that  the  early  habit  of  contemplating 


176  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

subjects  asi  expanded  as  the  earth  itself,  with  all 
the  relative  interests  of  the  great  nations  thereof, 
may  have  inspired  him  with  an  indifference, 
perhaps  an  inaptitude,  for  mere  points  of  litera- 
ture. Algernon  Sidney  has  said  that  he  deems 
all  studies  unworthy  the  serious  regard  of  a  man, 
except  the  study  of  the  principles  of  just  govern- 
ment ;  and  Mr ,  perhaps,  concurs  with 

our  countryman  in  this  as  well  as  in  his  other 
principles.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  occa- 
sion, his  acquaintance  with  the  fine  arts  is  cer- 
tainly very  limited  and  superficial ;  but,  making 
allowances  for  his  bias  towards  republicanism,  he 
is  a  profound  and  even  an  eloquent  statesmen. 

Knowing  him  to  be  attached  to  that  political 
party,  who,  by  their  opponents,  are  called  some- 
times democrats,  sometimes  jacobins  ;  and  aware 
also,  that  he  was  a  man  of  warm  and  even  ar- 
dent temper,  I  dreaded  much,  when  I  first 
entered  his  company,  that  I  should  have  been 
shocked  and  disgusted  with  the  narrow,  virulent 
and  rancorous  invectives  of  party  animosity.* 
How  agreeably,  how  delightfully,  was  I  disap- 
pointed !  Not  one  sentiment  of  intolerance  pol- 
luted his  lips.  On  the  contrary,  whether  they 

*  The  cloven  foot  of  the  Briton  is  visible ;  or,  else,  why  from 
the  premises  could  he  have  expected  such  a  consequence"? 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  177 

be  the  offspring  of  rational  induction,  of  the 
habit  of  surveying  men  and  things  on  a  great 
scale,  of  native  magnanimity,  or  of  a  combina- 
tion of  all  those  causes,  his  principles,  as  far  as 
they  were  exhibited  to  me,  were  forbearing,  lib- 
eral, widely  extended  and  great. 

As  the  elevated  ground,  which  he  already 
holds,  has  been  gained  merely  by  the  dint  of 
application  ;  as  every  new  step  which  he  mounts 
becomes  a  mean  of  increasing  his  powers  still 
further,  by  opening  a  wider  horizon  to  his  view, 
and  thus  stimulating  his  enterprise  afresh,  rein- 
vigorating  his  habits,  multiplying  the  materials 
and  extending  the  range  of  his  knowledge ;  it 
would  be  matter  of  no  surprise  to  me,  if,  before 
his  death,  the  world  should  see  him  at  the  head 
of  the  American  administration.  So  much  for 

the of  the  commonwealth  of  Virginia  : 

a  living,  an  honourable,  an  illustrious  monument 
of  self-created  eminence,  worth  and  greatness  ! 

Let  us  now  change  the  scene  and  lead  forward 
a  very  different  character  indeed :  a  truant,  but 
a  highly  favoured  pupil  of  nature.  It  would 
seem  as  if  this  capricious  goddess  had  finished 
the  two  characters,  purely  with  the  view  of  ex- 
hibiting a  vivid  contrast.  Nor  is  this  contrast 
confined  to  their  minds. 


17B  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

The of  the  United  States 

is,  in  his  person,  tall,  meager,  emaciated  ;  his 
muscles  relaxed,  and  l»is  joints  so  loosely  con- 
nected, as  not  only  to  disqualify  him,  apparently, 
for  any  vigorous  exertion  of  body,  but  to  destroy 
every  thing  like  elegance  and  harmony  in  his 
air  and  movements.  Indeed,  in  his  whole  ap- 
pearance, and  demeanour ;  dress,  attitudes,  gest- 
ure ;  sitting,  standing  or  walking  ;  he  is  as  far 
removed  from  the  idolized  graces  of  lord  Ches- 
terfield, as  any  other  gentleman  on  earth.  To 
continue  the  portrait :  his  head  and  face  are  small 
in  proportion  to  his  height;  his  complexion 
swarthy ;  the  muscles  of  his  face,  being  relaxed, 
give  him  the  appearance  of  a  man  of  fifty  years 
of  age,  nor  can  he  be  much  younger;  his  counte- 
nance has  a  faithful  expression  of  great  good 
humour  and  hilarity  ;  while  his  black  eyes — that 
unerring  index — possess  an  irradiating  spirit, 
which  proclaims  the  imperial  powers  of  the  mind 
that  sits  enthroned  within. 

This  extraordinary  man,  without  the  aid 
of  fancy,  without  the  advantages  of  person, 
voice,  attitude,  gesture,  or  any  of  the  ornaments 
of  an  orator,  deserves  to  be  considered  as  one  of 
the  most  eloquent  men  in  the  world;  if  eloquence 
may  be  said  to  consist  in  the  power  of  seizing 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  179 

the  attention  with  irresistible  force,  and  never 
permitting  it  to  elude  the  grasp,  until  the  hearer 
has  received  the  conviction  which  the  speaker 
intends. 

As  to  his  person,  it  has  already  been  described. 
His  voice  is  dry,  and  hard ;  his  attitude,  in  his 
most  effective  orations,  was  often  extremely  awk- 
ward ;  as  it  was  not  unusual  for  him  to  stand 
with  his  left  foot  in  advance,  while  all  his  gest- 
ure proceeded  from  his  right  arm,  and  consisted 
merely  in  a  vehement,  perpendicular  swing  of  it, 
from  about  the  elevation  of  his  head,  to  the  bar, 
behind  which  he  was  accustomed  to  stand. 

As  to  fancy,  if  she  hold  a  seat  in  his  mind 
at  all,  which  I  very  much  doubt,  his  gigantic 
genius  tramples  with  disdain,  on  all  her  flower- 
decked  plats  and  blooming  parterres.  How 
then,  you  will  ask,  with  a  look  of  incredulous 
curiosity,  how  is  it  possible  that  such  a  man  can 
hold  the  attention  of  an  audience  enchained, 
through  a  speech  of  even  ordinary  length  ?  I 
will  tell  you. 

He  possesses  one  original,  and,  almost,  super- 
natural faculty ;  the  faculty  of  developing  a 
subject  by  a  single  glance  of  his  mind,  and 
detecting  at  once,  the  very  point  on  which 
every  controversy  depends.  No  matter  what 


180  THE    BRITISH    SPT. 

the  question :  though  ten  times  more  knotty 
than  "  the  gnarled  oak,"  the  lightning  of  heaven 
is  not  more  rapid  nor  more  resistless,  than  his 
astonishing  penetration.  Nor  does  the  exercise 
of  it  seem  to  cost  him  an  effort.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  as  easy  as  vision.  I  am  persuaded 
that  his  eyes  do  not  fly  over  a  landscape  and 
take  in  its  various  objects  with  more  promptitude 
and  facility,  than  his  mind  embraces  and  ana- 
lyzes the  most  complex  subject. 

Possessing  while  at  the  bar  this  intellectual 
elevation,  which  enabled  him  to  look  down  and 
comprehend  the  whole  ground  at  once,  he  deter- 
mined immediately  and  without  difficulty,  on 
which  side  the  question  might  be  most  advan- 
tageously approached  and  assailed.  In  a  bad 
cause  his  art  consisted  in  laying  his  premises  so 
remotely  from  the  point  directly  in  debate,  or 
else  in  terms  so  general  and  so  specious,  that  the 
hearer,  seeing  no  consequence  which  could  be 
drawn  from  them,  was  just  as  willing  to  admit 
them  as  not;  but  his  premises  once  admitted, 
the  demonstration,  however  distant,  followed  as 
certainly,  as  cogently,  as  inevitably,  as  any 
demonstration  in  Euclid. 

All  his  eloquence  consists  in  the  apparently 
deep  self-conviction,  and  emphatic  earnestness 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  181 

of  his-  manner :  the  correspondent  simplicity  and 
energy  of  his  style ;  the  close  and  logical  con 
nexion  of  his  thoughts ;  and  the  easy  gradations 
by  which  he  opens  his  lights  on  the  attentive 
minds  of  his  hearers. 

The  audience  are  never  permitted  to  pause 
for  a  moment.  There  is  no  stopping  to  weave 
garkods  of  flowers,  to  hang  in  festoons,  around 
a  favourite  argument.  On  the  contrary,  every 
sentence  is  progressive  ;  every  idea  sheds  new 
light  on  the  subject ;  the  listener,  is  kept  perpe- 
tually in  that  sweetly  pleasurable  vibration,  with 
which  the  mind  of  man  always  receives  new 
truths ;  the  dawn  advances  in  easy  but  unremit- 
ting peace  ;  the  subject  opens  gradually  on  the 
"  view ;  until,  rising  in  high  relief,  in  all  its  native 
colours  and  proportions,  the  argument  is  con- 
summated, by  the  conviction  of  the  delighted 
hearer. 

The  success  of  this  gentleman  has  rendered  it 
doubtful  with  several  literary  characters  in  this 
country,  whether  a  high  fancy  be  of  real  use  or 
advantage  to  any  one  but  a  poet.  They  contend, 
that  although  the  most  beautiful  flights  of  the 
happiest  fancy,  interspersed  through  an  argu- 
ment, may  give  an  audience  the  momentary 

ielightful  swell  of  admiration,  the  transient  thriU 
16 


182  THE    BRITISH    SPY, 

of  divinetit  rapture ;  yet,  that  they  produce  no 
lasting  effect  in  forwarding  the  purpose  of  the 
speaker :  on  the  contrary,  that  they  break  the 
unity  and  disperse  the  force  of  an  argument, 
which  otherwise,  advancing  in  close  array,  like 
the  phalanx  of  Sparta,  would  carry  every  thing 
before  it.  They  give  an  instance  in  the  cele- 
brated Curran ;  and  pretend  that  his  fine  fancy, 
although  it  fires,  dissolves  and  even  transports  his 
audience  to  a  momentary  frenzy,  is  a  real  and  a 
fatal  misfortune  to  his  clients ;  as  it  calls  off  the 
attention  of  the  jurors  from  the  intrinsic  and 
essential  merits  of  the  defence ;  eclipses  the  jus- 
tice of  the  client's  cause,  in  the  blaze  of  the  advo- 
cate's talents ;  induces  a  suspicion  of  the  guilt 
which  requires  such  a  glorious  display  of  reful- 
gence to  divert  the  inquiry ;  and  substitutes  a 
fruitless  short-lived  ecstasy,  in  the  place  of  per- 
manent and  substantial  conviction.  Hence,  they 
say,  that  the  client  of  Mr.  Curran  is,  invariably, 
the  victim  of  the  prosecution,  which  that  able 
and  eloquent  advocate  is  employed  to  resist. 

The  doctrine,  in  the  abstract,  may  be  true, 
or,  as  doctor  Doubly  says,  it  may  not  be  true; 
for  the  present,  I  will  not  trouble  you  with  the 
expression  of  my  opinion.  I  fear  however,  my 
dear  S ,  that  Mr.  Curran's  failures  may 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  183 

be  traced  to  a  cause  very  different  from  any  fault 
either  in  the  style  or  execution  of  his  enchanting 

defences  :  a  cause but  I  am  forgetting 

that  this  letter  has  yet  to  cross  the  Atlantic.* 

To  return  to  the of  the  United 

States.  His  political  adversaries  allege  that  he 
is  a  mere  lawyer;  that  his  mind  has  been  so 
long  trammelled  by  judicial  precedent,  so  long 
habituated  to  the  quart  and  tierce  of  forensic 
digladiation,  (as  doctor  Johnson  would  probably 
have  called  it,)  as  to  be  unequal  to  the  discussion 
of  a  great  question  of  state.  Mr.  Curran,  in  his 
defence  of  Rowan,  seems  to  have  sanctioned  the 
probability  of  such  an  effect  from  such  a  cause, 
when  he  complains  of  his  own  mind  as  having 
been  narrowed  and  circumscribed,  by  a  strict 
and  technical  adherence  to  established  forms; 
but  in  the  next  breath,  an  astonishing  burst  of 
the  grandest  thought,  and  a  jpower  of  compre- 
hension to  which  there  seems  to  be  no  earthly 
limit,  proves  that  his  complaint,  as  it  relates  to 
himself,  is  entirely  without  foundation. 

Indeed,  if  the  objection  to 

mean  any  thing  more  than  that  he  has  not  had 

*  The  sentiment,  which  is  suppressed,  seems  to  wear  the 
livery  of  Bedford,  Moria,  and  the  Prince  of  Wales. 


184  THE    BRITIofl    SPY. 

the  same  illumination  and  exercise  in  matters 
of  state  as  if  he  had  devoted  his  life  to  the'm,  1 
am  unwilling  to  admit  it.  The  force  of  a  can- 
non is  the  same,  whether  pointed  at  a  rampart 
or  a  man  of  war,  although  practice  may  have 
made  the  engineer  more  expert  in  the  one  case 
than  in  the  other.  So  it  is  clear,  that  practice 
may  give  a  man  a  greater  command  over  one 
class  of  subjects  than  another ;  but  the  innerent 
energy  of  his  mind  remains  the  same,  whither- 
soever it  may  be  directed.  From  this  impression 
I  have  never  seen  any  cause  to  wonder  at  what 
is  called  a  universal  genius  :  it  proves  only  that 
the  man  has  applied  a  powerful  mind  to  the 
consideration  of  a  great  variety  of  subjects,  and 
pays  a  compliment  rather  to  his  superior  indus 
try,  than  his  superior  intellect.  I  am  very  cer- 
tain that  the  gentleman  of  whom  we  are  speak- 
ing, possesses  the  ycumen  which  might  constitute 
him  a  universal  genius,  according  to  the  usual 
acceptation  of  the  phrase.  But  if  he  be  the 
truant,  which  his  warmest  friends  represent  him 
to  be,  there  is  very  little  probability  that  he  will 
ever  reach  this  distinction. 

Think  you,  my  dear  S ,  that  the 

two  gentlemen,  whom  I  have  attempted  to  por- 
tray to  you,  were,  according  to  the  notion  of 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  185 

Helvetius,  born  with  equal  minds;  and  that  ac- 
cident or  education  has  produced  the  striking 
difference  which  we  perceive  to  exist  between 
them  ?  I  wish  it  were  the  case ;  and  that  the 

would  be  pleased  to  reveal  to 

us,  by  what  accident,  or  what  system  of  educa- 
tion, he  has  acquired  his  peculiar  sagacity  and 
promptitude.  Until  this  shall  be  done,  I  fear  I 
must  consider  the  hypothesis  of  Helvetius  as  a 
splendid  and  flattering  dream. 

But  I  tire  you: — adieu,  fcr  the  present,  friend 
and  guardian  <v  v*\ 


186  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 


LETTER  VL 

Jamestown,  September  27. 

1  HAVE  taken  a  pleasant  ride  of  sixty  miles 
down  the  river,  in  order,  ray  dear  S  .  .  .  .  ,  to  see 
the  remains  of  the  first  English  settlement  in 
Virginia. 

The  site  is  a  very  handsome  one.  The  river 
is  three  miles  broad  ;  and,  on  the  opposite  shore, 
the  country  presents  a  fine  range  of  bold  and 
beautiful  hills.  But  I  find  no  vestiges  of  the 
ancient  town,  except  the  ruins  of  a  church  stee- 
ple, and  a  disordered  group  of  old  tombstones. 
On  one  of  these,  shaded  by  the  boughs  of  a  tree, 
whose  trunk  has  embraced  and  grown  over  the 
edge  of  the  stone,  and  seated  on  the  head-stone 
of  another  grave,  I  now  address  you. 

What  a  moment  for  a  lugubrious  meditation 
among  the  tombs  !  but  fear  not ;  I  have  neither 
the  temper  nor  the  genius  of  a  Hervey  j  and,  as 
much  as  I  revere  his  pious  memory,  I  cannot 
envy  him  the  possession  of  such  a  genius  and 
such  a  temper.  For  my  own  part,  I  would  not 
have  suffered  the  mournful  pleasure  of  writing 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  L87 

fas  book,  and  Doctor  Young's  Night  Thoughts, 
for  all  the  just  fame  which  they  have  both  gained 
by  those  celebrated  productions.  Much  rather 
would  I  have  danced  and  sung,  and  played  the 
fiddle  with  Yorick,  through  the  whimsical  pages 
of  Tristram  Shandy  :  that  book  which  every 
body  justly  censures  and  admires  alternately; 
and  which  will  continue  to  be  read,  abused  and 
devoured,  with  ever  fresh  delight,  as  long  as  the 
world  shall  relish  a  joyous  laugh,  or  a  tear  of 
the  most  delicious  feeling. 

By  the  by,  here  on  one  side  is  an  inscription 
on  a  gravestone,  which  would  constitute  no  bad 
theme  for  an  occasional  meditation  from  Yorick 
himself.  The  stone,  it  seems,  covers  the  grave  of 
a  man  who  was  born  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
London  ;  and  his  epitaph  concludes  the  short  and 
rudely  executed  account  of  his  birth  and  death,  by 
declaring  him  to  have  been  "  a  great  sinner,  in 
hopes  of  a  joyful  resurrection  ;"  as  if  he  had  sin- 
ned with  no  other  intention,  than  to  give  himself 
a  fair  title  to  these  exulting  hopes.  But  awk- 
wardly and  ludicrously  as  the  sentiment  is 
expressed,  it  is  in  its  meaning  most  just  and 
beautiful ;  as  it  acknowledges  the  boundless 
mercy  of  Heaven,  and  glances  at  that  divinely 
consoling  proclamation,  "  come  unto  me  all 


188  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

ye  who  are  weary  and  heavy  laden,  and  I 
will  give  you  rest." 

The  ruin  of  the  steeple  is  about  thirty  feet 
high,  and  mantled,  to  its  very  summit,  with 
ivy.  It  is  difficult  to  look  at  this  venerable 
object,  surrounded  as  it  is  with  these  awful 
proofs  of  the  mortality  of  man,  without  ex- 
claiming in  the  pathetic  solemnity  of  our 
Shakspeare, 

"  The  cloud-capt  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherits,  shall  dissolve ; 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  wreck  behind." 

Whence,  my  dear  S ,  arises  the  irre- 
pressible reverence  and  tender  affection  with 
which  I  look  at  this  broken  steeple  ?  Is  it  that 
my  soul,  by  a  secret,  subtile  process,  invests 
the  mouldering  ruin  with  her  own  powers ; 
imagines  it  a  fellow  being ;  a  venerable  old 
man,  a  Nestor,  or  an  Ossian,  who  has  wit- 
nessed and  survived  the  ravages  of  successive 
generations,  the  companions  of  his  youth,  and 
of  his  maturity,  and  now  mourns  his  own  so- 
litary and  desolate  condition,  and  hails  their 
spirits  in  every  passing  cloud?  Whatever 
may  be  the  cause,  as  I  look  at  it,  I  feel  my 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  189 

soul  drawn  forward,  as  by  the  cords  of  gen 
tlest  sympathy,  and  involuntarily  open  my  lips 
to  offer  consolation  to  the  drooping  pile. 

Where,  my  S ,  is  the  busy,  bustling 

crowd  which  landed  here  two  hundred  years 
ago  ?  Where  is  Smith,  that  pink  of  gallantry, 
that  flower  of  chivalry  1  I  fancy  that  I  can 
see  their  first,  slow  and  cautious  approach  to 
the  shore  ;  their  keen  and  vigilant  eyes  pierc- 
ing the  forest  in  every  direction,  to  detect  the 
lurking  Indian,  with  his  tomahawk,  bow  and 
arrow.  Good  Heavens  !  what  an  enterprise  ! 
how  full  of  the  most  fearful  perils  !  and  yet 
how  entirely  profitless  to  the  daring  men  who 
personally  undertook  and  achieved  it !  Through 
what  a  series  of  the  most  spirit-chilling  hard 
ships,  had  they  to  toil !  How  often  did  they 
cast  their  eyes  to  England  in  vain  !  and  with 
what  delusive  hopes,  day  after,  day,  did  the 
little,  famished  crew  strain  their  sight  to  catch 
the  white  sail  of  comfort  and  relief !  But  day 
after  day,  the  sun  set,  and  darkness  covered 
the  earth ;  but  no  sail  of  comfort  or  relief 
came.  How  often  in  the  pangs  of  hunger, 
sickness,  solitude  and  disconsolation,  did  they 
think  of  London ;  her  shops,  her  markets 
groaning  under  the  weight  of  plenty ;  her 


190  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

streets  swarming  with  gilded  coaches,  bustling 
hacks,  with  crowds  of  lords,  dukes  and  com- 
mons, with  healthy,  busy,  contented  faces  of 
every  description  ;  and  among  them  none  more 
healthy  or  more  contented,  than  those  of  their 
ungrateful  and  improvident  directors !  But  now 
— where  are  they,  all  ?  the  little,  famished  colo- 
ny which  landed  here,  and  the  many-coloured 
crowd  of  London^ — where  are  they,  my  dear 
S ?  Gone,  where  there  is  no  distinc- 
tion ;  consigned  to  the  common  earth.  Another 
generation  succeeded  them :  which,  just  as 
busy  and  as  bustling  as  that  which  fell  before 
it  has  sunk  down  into  the  same  nothingness, 
Another  and  yet  another  billow  has  rolled  on, 
each  emulating  its  predecessor  in  height ;  tow- 
ering for  its  moment,  and  curling  its  foaming 
honours  to  the  clouds ;  then  roaring,  breaking, 
and  perishing  on  the  same  shore. 

Is  it  not  strange,  that,  familiarly  and  univer- 
sally as  these  things  are  known,  yet  each  gene- 
ration is  as  eager  in  the  pursuit  of  its  earthly 
objects,  projects  its  plans  on  a  scale  as  extensive 
as  and  laborious  in  their  execution,  with  a  spirit 
as  ardent  and  unrelaxing,  as  if  this  life  and  this 
world  were  to  last  for  ever  ?  It  is,  indeed,  a 
most  benevolent  interposition  of  Providence, 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  191 

that  these  palpable  and  just  views  of  the  vanity 
of  human  life  are  not  permitted  entirely  to  crush 
the  spirits,  and  unnerve  the  arm  of  industry. 
But  at  the  same  time,  methinks,  it  would  be 
wise  in  man  to  permit  them  to  have,  at  least, 
so  much  weight  with  him,  as  to  prevent  his 
total  absorption  by  the  things  of  this  earth, 
and  to  point  some  of  his  thoughts  and  his 
exertions,  to  a  system  of  being,  far  more  per- 
manent, exalted  and  happy.  Think  not  this 
reflection  too  solemn.  It  is  irresistibly  inspired 
by  the  objects  around  me  ;  and,  as  rarely  as 
it  occurs,  (much  too  rarely,)  it  is  most  certainly 
and  solemnly  true,  my  S 

It  is  curious  to  reflect,  what  a  nation,  in  the 
course  of  two  hundred  years,  has  sprung  up 
and  flourished  from  the  feeble,  sickly  germ 
which  was  planted  here  !  Little  did  our  short- 
sighted court  suspect  the  conflict  which  she 
was  preparing  for  herself;  the  convulsive  throe 
by  which  her  infant  colony  would  in  a  few 
vears  burst  from  her,  and  start  into  a  political 
importance  that  would  astonish  the  earth. 

But  Virginia,  my  dear  S ,  as  rapidly 

as  her  population  and  her  wealth  must  continue 
to  advance,  wants  one  most  important  source 
of  solid  grandeur ;  and  that,  too,  the  animating 


L92  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

soul  of  a  republic.  I  mean,  public  spirit ;  that 
sacred  amor  patrice  which  filled  Greece  and 
Rome  with  patriots,  heroes  and  scholars. 

There  seems  to  me  to  be  but  one  object 
throughout  the  state  ;  to  grow  rich :  a  passion 
which  is  visible,  not  only  in  the  walks  of  pri- 
vate life,  but  which  has  crept  into  and  poisoned 
every  public  body  in  the  state.  Indeed,  from 
the  very  genius  of  the  government,  by  which 
all  the  public  characters  are,  at  short  periodical 
elections,  evolved  from  the  body  of  the  people, 
it  cannot  but  happen,  that  the  councils  of  the 
state  must  take  the  impulse  of  the  private 
propensities  of  the  country.  Hence,  Virginia 
exhibits  no  great  public  improvements ;  hence, 
in  spite  of  her  wealth,  every  part  of  the  country 
manifests  her  sufferings,  either  from  the  penury 
of  her  guardians,  or  their  want  of  that  atten- 
tion and  noble  pride,  wherewith  it  is  their  duty 
to  consult  her  appearance.  Her  roads  and 
highways  are  frequently  impassable,  sometimes 
frightful ;  the  very  few  public  works  which 
have  been  set  on  foot,  instead  of  being  carried 
on  with  spirit,  are  permitted  to  languish  and 
pine  and  creep  feebly  along,  in  such  a  manner, 
that  the  first  part  of  an  edifice  grows  grey  with 
age,  and  almost  tumbles  in  ruins,  before  the 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  193 

last  part  is  lifted  from  the  dust ;  highest  offi- 
cers are  sustained  with  so  avaricious,  so  nig- 
gardly a  hand,  that  if  they  are  not  driven  to 
subsist  on  roots,  and  drink  ditch-water,  with 
old  Fabricius,  it  is  not  for  the  want  of  repub- 
lican economy  in  the  projectors  of  the  salaries ; 
and,  above  all,  the  general  culture  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  that  best  cure  for  the  aristocratic 
distinctions  which  they  profess  to  hate,  that 
best  basis  of  the  social  and  political  equality, 
which  they  profess  to  love :  this  culture,  instead 
of  becoming  a  national  care,  is  intrusted  merely 
to  such  individuals,  as  hazard,  indigence,  mis- 
fortunes or  crimes,  have  forced  from  their 
native  Europe  to  seek  an  asylum  and  bread 
in  the  wilds  of  America. 

They  have  only  one  public  seminary  of 
learning :  a  college  in  Williamsburg,  about 
seven  miles  from  this  place,  which  was  erected 
in  the  reign  of  our  William  and  Mary,  derives 
its  principal  support  from  their  munificence, 
and  therefore  very  properly  bears  their  names. 
This  college,  in  the  fastidious  folly  and  affect- 
ation of  republicanism,  or  what  is  worse,  in 
the  niggardly  spirit  of  parsimony  which  they 
dignify  with  the  name  of  economy,  these  demo- 
crats have  endowed  with  a  few  despicable 
17 


194  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

fragments  of  surveyors'  fees,  &c.,  thus  convert- 
ing their  apjional  academy  into  a  mere  laza- 
retto, and  feeding  its  polite,  scientific,  and 
highly  respectable  professors,  like  a  band  of 
beggars,  on  the  scraps  and  crumbs  that  fall 
from  the  financial  table.  And,  then,  instead  of 
aiding  and  energizing  the  police  of  the  college, 
by  a  few  civil  regulations,  they  permit  their 
youth  to  run  riot  in  all  the  wildness  of  dissi- 
pation ;  while  the  venerable  professors  are 
forced  to  look  on,  in  the  deep  mortification  of 
conscious  impotence,  and  see  their  care  and 
zeal  requited,  by  the  ruin  of  their  pupils  and 
the  destruction  of  their  seminary. 

These  are  points  which,  at  present,  I  can 
oarely  touch  ;  when  I  have  an  easier  seat  and 
writing  desk,  than  a  grave  and  a  tombstone,  it 
will  give  me  pleasure  to  dilate  on  them ;  for,  it 
will  afford  an  opportunity  of  exulting  in  the 
superiority  of  our  own  energetic  monarchy, 
over  this  republican  body  without  a  soul.* 

For  the  present,  my  dear  S ,  I  bid 

you  adieu. 

*  British  insolence!  Yet  it  cannot  be  denied,  however 
painful  the  admission,  that  there  is  some  foundation  for  his 
censures 


THE   BRITISH    SPV. 


LETTER  YD. 

Richmond,  October  10. 

I  HAVE  been,  my  dear  S ,  on  an  ex- 
cursion through  the  countries  which  lie  along 
the  eastern  side  of  the  Blue  Ridge.  A  general 
description  of  that  country  and  its  inhabitants 
may  form  the  subject  of  a  future  letter.  For 
the  present,  I  must  entertain  you  with  an  ac- 
count of  a  most  singular  and  interesting  adven- 
ture, which  I  met  with,  in  the  course  of  the 
tour. 

It  was  one  Sunday,  as  I  travelled  through 
the  county  of  Orange,  that  my  eye  was  caught 
by  a  cluster  of  horses  tied  near  a  ruinous,  old, 
wooden  house,  in  the  forest,  not  far  from  the 
road  side.  Having  frequently  seen  such  ob- 
jects before,  in  travelling  through  these  states, 
I  had  no  difficulty  in  understanding  that  this 
was  a  place  of  religious  worship. 

Devotion  alone  should  have  stopped  me,  to 
.oin  in  the  duties  of  the  congregation ;  but  I 
must  confess,  that  curosity,  to  hear  the  preacher 
of  such  a  wilderness,  was  not  the  least  of  my 


196  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

motives.  On  entering,  I  was  struck  with  his 
preternatural  appearance,  he  was  a  tall  and 
very  spare  old  man ;  his  head,  which  was 
covered  with  a  white  linen  cap,  his  shrivelled 
hands,  and  his  voice,  were  all  shaking  under 
the  influence  of  a  palsy ;  and  a  few  moments 
ascertained  to  me  that  he  was  perfectly  blind. 

The  first  emotions  which  touched  my  breast, 
were  those  of  mingled  pity  and  veneration. 
But  ah  !  sacred  God  !  how  soon  were  all  my 
feelings  changed !  The  lips  of  Plato  were 
never  more  worthy  of  a  prognostic  swarm  of 
bees,  than  were  the  lips  of  this  holy  man  !  It 
was  a  day  of  the  administration  of  the  sacra- 
ment ;*  and  his  subject,  of  course,  was  the  pas- 
sion of  our  Saviour.  I  had  heard  the  subject 
handled  a  thousand  times :  I  had  thought  it 
exhausted  long  ago.  Little  did  I  suppose,  that 
in  the  wild  woods  of  America,  I  was  to  meet 
with  a  man  whose  eloquence  would  give  to 
this  topic  a  new  and  more  sublime  pathos, 
than  I  had  ever  before  witnessed. 

As  he  descended  from  the  pulpit,  to  distri- 
bute the  mystic  symbols,  there  was  a  peculiar, 
a  more  than  human  solemnity  in  his  air  and 
manner  which  made  my  blood  run  cold,  and 
my  whole  frame  shiver. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  197 

He  then  drew  a  picture  of  the  sufferings  of 
our  Saviour ;  his  trial  before  Pilate ;  his  ascent 
up  Calvary;  his  crucifixion,  and  his  death. 
I  knew  the  whole  history ;  but  never,  until  then, 
had  I  heard  the  circumstances  so  selected,  so 
arranged,  so  coloured  !  It  was  all  new  :  and 
I  seemed  to  have  heard  it  for  the  first  time  in 
my  life.  His  enunciation  was  so  deliberate, 
that  his  voice  trembled  on  every  syllable ;  and 
every  heart  in  the  assembly  trembled  in  unison. 
His  peculiar  phrases  had  that  force  of  descrip- 
tion that  the  original  scene  appeared  to  be,  at 
that  moment,  acting  before  our  eyes.  We  saw 
the  very  faces  of  the  Jews  :  the  staring,  fright- 
ful distortions  of  malice  and  rage.  We  saw 
the  buffet ;  my  soul  kindled  with  a  flame  of 
indignation ;  and  my  hands  were  involunta- 
rily and  convulsively  clinched. 

But  when  he  came  to  touch  on  the  patience, 
the  forgiving  meekness  of  our  Saviour ;  when 
he  drew,  to  the  life,  his  blessed  eyes  streaming 
in  tears  to  heaven ;  his  voice  breathing  to  God, 
a  soft  and  gentle  prayer  of  pardon  on  his  ene- 
mies, "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know 
not  what  they  do" — the  voice  of  the  preacher, 
which  had  all  along  faltered,  grew  fainter  and 

fainter,  until  his  utterance  being  entirely  ob 
17* 


198  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

structed  by  the  force  of  his  feelings,  he  raised 
his  handkerchief  to  his  eyes,  and  burst  into  a 
loud  and  irrepressible  flood  of  grief.  The  effect 
is  inconceivable.  The  whole  house  resound- 
ed with  the  mingled  groans,  and  sobs,  and 
shrieks  of  the  congregation. 

It  was  some  time  before  the  tumult  had 
subsided,  so  far  as  to  permit  him  to  proceed. 
Indeed,  judging  by  the  usual,  but  fallacious 
standard  of  my  own  weakness,  I  began  to  be 
very  uneasy  for  the  situation  of  the  preacher. 
For  I  could  not  conceive,  how  he  would  be 
able  to  let  his  audience  down  from  the  height 
to  which  he  had  wound  them,  without  impair- 
ing the  solemnity  and  dignity  of  his  subject, 
or  perhaps  shocking  them  by  the  abruptness 
of  the  fall.  But — no ;  the  descent  was  as 
beautiful  and  sublime,  as  the  elevation  had  been 
rapid  and  enthusiastic. 

The  first  sentence,  with  which  he  broke  the 
awful  silence,  was  a  quotation  from  Rousseau, 
"  Socrates  died  like  a  philos  opher,  but  Jesus 
Christ,  like  a  God  !" 

I  despair  of  giving  you  any  idea  of  the  effect 
produced  by  this  short  sentence,  unless  you 
could  perfectly  conceive  the  whole  manner  of 
the  man,  as  well  as  the  peculiar  crisis  in  the 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  199 

discourse.  Never  before,  did  I  completely 
understand  what  Demosthenes  meant  by  lay- 
ing such  stress  on  delivery.  You  are  to  bring 
before  you  the  venerable  figure  of  the  preacher ; 
his  blindness,  constantly  recalling  to  your 
recollection  old  Homer,  Ossian  and  Milton,  and 
associating  with  his  performance,  the  melan- 
choly grandeur  of  their  geniuses ;  you  are  to 
imagine  that  you  hear  his  slow,  solemn,  well- 
accented  enunciation,  and  his  voice  of  affect- 
ing, trembling  melody ;  you  are  to  remember 
tHe  pitch  of  passion  and  enthusiasm  to  which 
the  congregation  were  raised;  and  then,  the 
few  minutes  of  portentous,  death-like  silence 
which  reigned  throughout  the  house ;  the 
preacher  removing  his  white  handkerchief  from 
his  aged  face,  (even  yet  wet  from  the  recent 
torrent  of  his  tears,)  and  slowly  stretching  forth 
the  palsied  hand  which  holds  it,  begins  the 
sentence,  "  Socrates  died  like  a  philosopher" — 
then  pausing,  raising  his  other  hand,  pressing 
them  both  clasped  together,  with  warmth  and 
energy  to  his  breast,  lifting  his  "sightless 
balls"  to  heaven,  and  pouring  his  whole  soul 
into  his  tremulous  voice — "  but  Jesus  Christ — 
like  a  God !"  If  he  had  been  indeed  and  in 


200  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

truth  an  angel  of  light,  the  effect  could  scarcely 
have  been  more  divine. 

Whatever  I  had  been  able  to  conceive  of  the 
sublimity  of  Massillon,  or  the  force  of  Bourda- 
loue,  had  fallen  far  short  of  the  power  which  I 
felt  from  the  delivery  of  this  simple  sentence. 
The  blood,  which  just  before  had  rushed  in  a 
hurricane  upon  my  brain,  and,  in  the  violence 
and  agony  of  my  feelings,  had  held  my  whole 
system  in  suspense,  now  ran  back  into  my 
heart,  with  a  sensation  which  I  cannot  describe 
— a  kind  of  shuddering  delicious  horror  !  The 
paroxysm  of  blended  pity  and  indignation,  to 
which  I  had  been  transported,  subsided  into 
the  deepest  self-abasement,  humility  and  ado- 
ration. I  had  just  been  lacerated  and  dissolved 
by  sympathy,  for  our  Saviour  as  a  fellow 
creature ;  but  now,  with  fear  and  trembling,  I 
•adored  him  as — "  a  God  !" 

If  this  description  give  you  the  impression, 
that  this  incomparable  minister  had  any  thing 
of  shallow,  theatrical  trick  in  his  manner,  it 
does  him  great  injustice.  I  have  never  seen, 
in  any  other  orator,  such  a  union  of  simplicity 
and  majesty.  He  has  not  a  gesture,  an  atti- 
tude or  an  accent,  to  which  he  does  not  seem 
forced,  by  the  sentiment  which  he  is  express- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  20J 

ing.  His  mind  is  too  serious,  too  earnest,  too 
solicitous,  and,  at  the  same  time,  too  dignified, 
to  stoop  to  artifice.  Although  as  far  removed 
from  ostentation  as  a  man  can  be,  yet  it  is 
clear  from  the  train,  the  style  and  substance 
of  his  thoughts,  that  he  is,  not  only  a  very 
polite  scholar,  but  a  man  of  extensive  and  pro 
found  erudition.  I  was  forcibly  struck  with  a 
short,  yet  beautiful  character  which  he  drew  of 
our  learned  and  amiable  countryman,  Sir  Rob- 
ert Boyle  :  he  spoke  of  him,  as  if  "  his  noble 
mind  had,  even  before  death,  divested  herself 
of  all  influence  from  his  frail  tabernacle  of 
flesh ;"  and  called  him,  in  his  peculiarly  em- 
phatic and  impressive  manner,  "  a  pure  intelli- 
gence :  the  link  between  men  and  angels." 

This  man  has  been  before  my  imagination 
almost  ever  since.  A  thousand  times,  as  I 
rode  along,  I  dropped  the  reins  of  my  bridle, 
stretched  forth  my  hand,  and  tried  to ,  imitate 
his  quotation  from  Rousseau ;  a  thousand  times 
I  abandoned  the  attempt  in  despair,  and  felt 
persuaded  that  his  peculiar  manner  and  power 
arose  from  an  energy  of  soul,  which  nature 
could  give,  but  which  no  human  being  could 
justly  copy.  In  short,  he  seems  to  be  altogether 
a  being  of  a  former  age,  or  of  a  totally  different 


202  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

nature  from  the  rest  of  men.  As  I  recall,  at 
this  moment,  several  of  his  awfully  striking 
attitudes,  the  chilling  tide,  with  which  my 
blood  begins  to  pour  along  my  arteries,  re- 
minds me  of  the  emotions  produced  by  the 
first  sight  of  Gray's  introductory  picture  of  his 
bard : 

"  On  a  rock,  whose  haughty  brow, 

Frowns  o'er  old  Conway's  foaming  flood, 
Robed  in  the  sable  garb  of  wo, 

With  haggard  eyes  the  poet  stood ; 
(Loose  his  beard  and  hoary  hair 

Streamed,  like  a  meteor,  to  the  troubled  air:) 
And  with  a  poet's  hand  and  prophet's  fire, 

Struck  the  deep  sorrows  of  his  lyre." 

Guess  my  surprise,  when,  on  my  arrival  at 
Richmond,  and  mentioning  the  name  of  this 
man,  I  found  not  one  person  who  had  ever 
before  heard  of  James  Waddell !  !  Is  it  not 
strangefc  that  such  a  genius  as  this,  so  accom- 
plished a  scholar,  so  divine  an  orator,  should 
be  permitted  to  languish  and  die  in  obscurity, 
within  eighty  miles  of  the  metropolis  of  Vir- 
ginia ?  To  me  it  is  a  conclusive  argument, 
either  that  the  Virginians  have  no  taste  for  the 
highest  strains  of  the  most  sublime  oratory,  or 
that  they  are  destitute  of  a  much  more  import- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  203 

ant  quality,  the  love  of  genuine  and  exalted 
religion. 

Indeed,  it  is  too  clear,  my  friend,  that  this 
soil  abounds  more  in  weeds  of  foreign  birth, 
than  in  good  and  salubrious  fruits.  Among 
others,  the  noxious  weed  of  infidelity  has 
struck  a  deep,  a  fatal  root,  and  spread  its  pes- 
tilential branches  far  around.  I  fear  that  our 
eccentric  and  fanciful  countryman,  Godwin, 
has  contributed  not  a  little  to  water  and  cher- 
ish this  pernicious  exotic.  There  is  a 
novelty,  a  splendour,  a  boldness  in  his  scheme 
of  morals,  peculiarly  fitted  to  captivate  a  youth- 
ful and  ardent  mind.  A  young  man  feels  his 
delicacy  flattered,  in  the  idea  of  being  emanci- 
pated from  the  old,  obsolete  and  vulgar  motives 
of  moral  conduct ;  and  acting  correctly  from 
motives  quite  new,  refined  and  sublimated  hi 
the  crucible  of  pure,  abstracted  reason.  Unfor- 
tunately, however,  in  this  attempt  to  change 
the  motives  of  his  conduct,  he  loses  the  old 
ones,  while  the  new,  either  from  being  too 
etherial  and  sublime,  or  from  some  other  want 
of  congeniality,  refuse  to  mix  and  lay  hold  of 
the  gioss  materials  of  his  nature.  Thus  he 
becomes  emancipated  indeed;  discharged  not 
only  from  ancient  and  vulgar  shackles ;  but 


204  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

also,  from  the  modern,  finespun,  tinselled  re  . 
straints  of  his  divine  Godwin.     Having  im- 
bibed the  high  spirit  of  literary  adventure,  he 
disdains  the  limits  of  the  moral  world ;  and 
advancing  boldly  to  the  throne  of  God,  he 
questi6ns    him    on    his  dispensations,    and 
demands  the  reasons  of  his  laws.     But  the 
counsels  of  heaven  are  above  the  ken,  not 
contrary  to  the  voice  of  human  reason ;  and 
the  unfortunate  youth,  unable  to  reach  and 
measure  them,  recoils  from  the  attempt,  with 
melancholy  rashness,  into  infidelity  and  deism. 
Godwin's  glittering  theories  are  on  his  lips. 
Utopia  or  Mezorania,   boast  not  of  a  purer 
moralist,  in  words,  than  the  young  Godwin- 
ian ;   but  the  unbridled  licentiousness  of  his 
conduct  makes  it  manifest,  that  if  Godwin's 
principles  be  true  in  the  abstract,  they  are  not 
fit  for  this  system  of  things  ;  whatever  they 
might  be  in  the  republic  of  Plato. 

From  a  life  of  inglorious  indolence,  by  far 
too  prevalent  among  the  young  men  of  this 
country,  the  transition  is  easy  and  natural  to 
immorality  and  dissipation.  It  is  at  this 
giddy  period  of  life,  when  a  series  of  dissolute 
courses  have  debauched  the  purity  and  inno- 
cence of  the  heart,  shaken  the  pillars  of  the 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  205 

understanding,  and  converted  her  sound  and 
wholesome  operations  into  little  more  than  a 
set  of  feverish  starts  and  incoherent  and  deli- 
rious dreams  ;  it  is  in  such  a  situation  that  a 
new-fangled  theory  is  welcomed  as  an  amusing 
guest,  and  deism  is  embraced  as  a  balmy 
comforter  against  the  pangs  of  an  offended 
conscience.  This  coalition,  once  formed  and 
habitually  consolidated,  "farewell,  a  long  fare- 
well" to  honour,  genius  and  glory !  From 
such  a  gulf  of  complicated  ruin,  few  have  the 
energy  even  to  attempt  an  escape.  The  mo- 
ment of  cool  reflection,  which  should  save 
them,  is  too  big  with  horror  to  be  endured. 
Every  plunge  is  deeper,  until  the  tragedy  is 
finally  wound  up  by  a  pistol  or  a  halter.  Do 
not  believe  that  I  am  drawing  from  fancy : 
the  picture  is  unfortunately  true.  Few  dramas, 
indeed,  have  yet  reached  their  catastrophe  ;  but, 
too  many  are  in  a  rapid  progress  toward  it. 

These  thoughts  are  affecting  and  oppressive. 
I  am  glad  to  retreat  from  them,  by  bidding  you 
adieu ;  and  offering  my  prayers  to  heaven,  that 
you  may  never  lose  the  pure,  the  genial  con- 
solations of  unshaken  faith,  and  an  approving 
conscience.  Once  more,  my  dear  S , 

adieu. 

18 


206  THE    BRITISH    SPV 


LETTER  VIII. 

Richmond,  October  15. 
MEN  of  talents  in  this  country,  my  dear 

S ,  have  been  generally  bred  to  tbje 

profession  of  the  law  ;  and  indeed,  throughout 
the  United  States,  I  have  met  with  few  per- 
sons of  exalted  intellect,  whose  powers  have 
been  directed  to  any  other  pursuit.  The  bar, 
in  America  is  the  road  to  honour  ;  and  hence, 
although  the  profession  is  graced  by  the  most 
shining  geniuses  on  the  continent,  it  is  incum- 
bered  also  by  a  melancholy  group  of  young 
men,  who  hang  on  the  rear  of  the  bar,  like 
Goethe's  sable  clouds  in  the  western  horizon. 
I  have  been  told  that  the  bar  of  Virginia  was, 
a  few  years  ago,  pronounced  by  the  supreme 
court  of  the  United  States,  to  be  the  most  en- 
lightened and  able  on  the  continent.  I  am 
very  incompetent  to  decide  on  the  merit  of 
their  legal  acquirements  ;  but,  putting  aside  the 
partiality  of  a  Briton,  I  do  not  think  either  of 
the  gentlemen  by  any  means  so  eloquent  or 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  207 

so  erudite  as  our  countryman  Erskine.  With 
your  permission,  however,  I  will  make  you 
better  acquainted  with  the  few  characters  who 
lead  the  van  of  the  profession. 

Mr has  great  personal  advantages. 

A  figure  large  and  portly ;  his  features  uncom- 
monly fine ;  his  dark  eyes  and  his  whole 
countenance  lighted  up  with  an  expression  of 
the  most  conciliating  sensibility ;  his  attitudes 
dignified  and  commanding  ;  his  gesture  easy 
and  graceful ;  his  voice  perfect  harmony ;  and 
his  whole  manner  that  of  an  accomplished 
and  engaging  gentleman.  •  I  have  reason  to 
believe  that  the  expression  of  his  countenance 
does  no  more  than  justice  to  his  heart.  If  I 
be  correctly  informed,  his  feelings  are  exquisite ; 
and  the  proofs  of  his  benevolence  are  various 
and  clear  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt.  He 
has  filled  the  highest  offices  in  this  common- 
wealth and  has  very  long  maintained  a  most 
respectable  rank  in  his  profession.  His  char- 
acter, with  the  people,  is  that  of  a  great  lawyer 
and  an  eloquent  speaker ;  and,  indeed,  so  many 
men  of  discernment  and  taste  entertain  this 
opinion,  and  my  prepossessions  in  his  favour 
are  so  strong,  on  account  of  the  amiable  quali- 
ties of  his  character,  that  I  am  very  well  dis- 


208  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

posed  to  doubt  the  accuracy  of  my  own  jidg 
ment  as  it  relates  to  him. 

To  me,  however,  it  seems,  that  his  mind;  as 
is  often  but  not  invariably  the  case,  corres- 
ponds with  his  personal  appearance :  that  is, 
that  it  is  turned  rather  for'  ornament  than  for 
severe  use :  pompa,  quam  pugnce  aptior,  as 
Tully  expresses  it.  His  speeches,  I  think, 
deserve  the  censure  which  lord  Verulam  pro- 
nounces on  the  writers  posterior  to  the  reform- 
ation of  the  church.  "  Luther,"  says  he, 
"  standing  alone,  against  the  church  of  Rome, 
found  it  necessary  to  awaken  all  antiquity  in 
his  behalf :  this  introduced  the  study  of  the  dead 
languages,  a  taste  for  the  fulness  of  the  Cice- 
ronean  manner ;  and  hence  the  still  preva- 
lent error  of  hunting  more  after  words  than 
matter,  and  more  after  the  choiceness  of  the 
phrase  and  the  round  and  clean  composi- 
tion of  the  sentence,  and  the  sweet  fallings 
of  the  clauses,  and  the  varying  and  illustration 
of  their  works  with  tropes  and  figures,  than 
after  the  weight  of  matter,  worth  of  subject, 
soundness  of  argument,  life  of  invention,  or 
depth  of  judgment." 

Mr 's  temper  and  ha6its  lead  him  to 

the  swelling,  stately  manner  of  Bolingbroke 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  209 

but  either  from  the  want  of  promptitude  and 
richness  of  conception,  or  his  too  sedulous 
concern  and  "  hunting  after  words,"  he  does 
not  maintain  that  manner,  smoothly  and  hap- 
pily. On  the  contrary,  the  spirits  of  his  hear- 
ers, after  having  been  awakened  and  put  into 
sweet  and  pleasant  motion,  have  their  tide, 
not  unfrequently  checked,  ruffled  and  painfully 
obstructed  by  the  hesitation  and  perplexity  of 
the  speaker.  It  certainly  must  demand,  my 

dear  S ,  a  mind  of  very  high  powers  to 

support  the  swell  of  Bolingbroke,  with  felicity. 
The  tones  of  voice,  which  naturally  belong  to 
it,  keep  the  expectation  continually  "  on  tiptoe," 
and  this  must  be  gratified  not  only  by  the  most 
oily  fluency,  but  by  a  course  of  argument  clear 
as  light,  and  an  alternate  play  of  imagination 
as  grand  and  magnificent  as  HerschelFs  dance 
of  the  sidereal  system.  The  work  requires  to 
be  perpetually  urged  forward.  One  interrup- 
tion in  the  current  of  the  language,  one  poor 
thought  or  abortion  of  fancy,  one  vacant 
aversion  of  the  eye,  or  relaxation  in  the  ex- 
pression of  the  face,  entirely  breaks  and  dis- 
solves the  whole  charm.  The  speaker,  indeed, 
may  go  on  and  evolve,  here  and  there,  a  pretty 
18* 


210  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

thought;  but  the  wondrous  magic  of  the 
whole  is  gone  for  ever. 

Whether  it  be  from  any  defect  in  the  organi- 
zation of  Mr 's  mind,  or  that  his  pas 

sion  for  the  fine  dress  of  his  thoughts  is  the 
master  passion,  which,  "  like  Aaron's  serpent, 
swallows  up  the  rest,"  I  will  not  undertake  to 
decide  ;  but  perhaps  it  results  from  one  of  those 
two  causes,  that  all  the  arguments,  which  I 
have  ever  heard  from  him,  are  defective  in  that 
important  and  most  material  character,  the 
lucidus  ordo. 

I  have  been  sometimes  inclined  to  believe, 
that  a  man's  division  of  his  argument  would 
be  generally  found  to  contain  a  secret  history 
of  the  difficulties  which  he  himself  has  encoun- 
tered in  the  investigation  of  his  subject.  I  am 
firmly  persuaded  that  the  extreme  prolixity  of 
many  discourses  to  which  we  are  doomed  to 
listen,  is  chargeable,  not  to  the  fertility,  but  to 
the  darkness  and  impotence  of  the  brain  which 
produces  them.  A  man,  who  sees  his  object 
in  a  strong  light,  marches  directly  up  to  it,  hi 
a  right  line,  with  the  firm  step  of  a  soldier ; 
while  another,  residing  in  a  less  illumined 
zone,  wanders  and  reels  in  the  twilight  of  the 
brain,  and  ere  he  attain  his  object,  treads  a 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  211 

maze  as  intricate  and  perplexing  as  that  of  the 
celebrated  labyrinth  of  Crete. 

It  was  remarkable  of  the of  the 

United  States,  whom  I  mentioned  to  you  in  a 
former  letter  as  looking  through  a  subject  at 
a  single  glance,  that  he  almost  invariably 
seized  one  strong  point  only,  the  pivot  of  the 
controversy ;  this  point  he  would  enforce  with 
all  his  powers,  never  permitting  his  own  mind 
to  waver,  nor  obscuring  those  of  his  hearers, 
by  a  cloud  of  inferior,  unimportant  considera 

tions.     But  this  is  not  the  manner  of  Mr 

I  suspect,  that  in  the  preparatory  investigation 
of  a  subject,  he  gains  his  ground  by  slow  and 
laborious  gradations  ;  and  that  his  difficulties 
are  numerous  and  embarrassing.  Hence  it  is, 
perhaps,  that  his  points  are  generally  too  multi- 
farious ;  and  although,  among  the  rest,  he  ex- 
hibits the  strong  point,  its  appearance  is  too 
often  like  that  of  Issachar,  "  bow'd  down  be- 
tween two  burthens."  I  take  this  to  be  a  very 
ill-judged  method.  It  may  serve  indeed  to  make 
the  multitude  stare ;  but  it  frustrates  the  great 
purpose  of  the  speaker.  Instead  of  giving  a 
simple,  lucid  and  animated  view  of  a  subject,  it 
overloads,  confounds  and  fatigues  the  listener. 
Instead  of  leaving  him  under  the  vivacity  of 


212  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

clear  and  full  conviction,  it  leaves  him  bewil- 
dered, darkling,  asleep ;  and  when  he  awakes, 
he 


-"  wakes,  emerging  from  a  sea  of  dream 


Tumultuous ;  where  his  wreck'd,  desponding  thought, 
From  wave  to  wave  of  wild  uncertainty, 
At  random  drove, — her  helm  of  reason  lost" 

I  incline  to  believe  that  if  there  be  a  blemish 
in  the  mind  of  this  amiable  gentleman,  it  is 
the  want  of  a  strong  and  masculine  judgment. 
If  such  an  agent  had  wielded  the  sceptre  of 
his  understanding,  it  is  presumable,  that,  ere 
this,  it  would  have  chastised  his  exuberant 
fondness  for  literary  finery,  and  the  too  osten 
tatious  and  unfortunate  parade  of  points  hi  his 
argument,  on  which  I  have  just  commented. 
If  I  may  confide  in  the  replies  which  I  have 
heard  given  to  him  at  the  bar,  this  want  of 
judgment  is  sometimes  manifested  in  his 
selection  and  application  of  law  cases.  But  of 
this  I  can  judge  only  from  the  triumphant  air 
with  which  his  adversaries  seize  his  cases  and 
appear  to  turn  them  against  him. 

He  is  certainly  a  man  of  close  and  elaborate 
research.     It  would  seem  to  me,  however,  my 

dear  S ,  that  in  order  to  constitute  a 

scientific  lawyer,  something  more  is  necessary 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  213 

than  the  patient  and  persevering  revolution  of 
the  leaves  of  the  author.  Does  it  not  require 
a  discernment  sufficiently  clear  and  strong  to 
eviscerate  the  principles  of  each  case ;  a  judg- 
ment potent  enough  to  digest,  connect  and 
systematize  them,  and  to  distinguish,  at  once, 
in  any  future  combination  of  circumstances, 
the  very  feature  which  gives  or  refuses  to  a 
principle,  a  just  application  ?  Without  such 
intellectual  properties,  I  should  conjecture,  (for 
on  this  subject  I  can  only  conjecture,)  that  a 
man  could  not  have  the  fair  advantage  and 
perfect  command  of  his  reading.  For,  in  the 
first  place,  I  should  apprehend,  that  he  would 
never  discover  the  application  of  a  case,  with- 
out the  recurrence  of  all  the  same  circumstan- 
ces ;  in  the  next  place,  that  his  cases  would 
form  a  perfect  chaos,  a  rudis  indigestaque 
moles,  in  his  brain ;  and  lastly,  that  he  would 
often  and  sometimes  perhaps  fatally  mistake 
the  identifying  feature,  and  furnish  his  antago- 
nist with  a  formidable  weapon  against  himself. 
But  let  me  fly  from  this  entangled  wilder- 
ness, of  which  I  have  so  little  knowledge,  and 

return  to  Mr Although  when  brought 

to  the  standard  of  perfect  oratory,  he  may  be 
subject  to  the  censures  which  I  have  passed 


214  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

on  him  ;  yet  it  is  to  be  acknowledged,  and  1 
make  the  acknowledgment  with  pleasure, 
that  he  is  a  man  of  extensive  reading,  a  well- 
informed  lawyer,  a  fine  belles  lettres  scholar 
and  sometimes  a  beautiful  speaker. 

The  gentleman  who  has  been  pointed  out 
to  me  as  holding  the  next  if  not  an  equal  grade 

in  the  profession,  is  Mr He  is,  I  am 

told,  upwards  of  forty  years  of  age ;  but  his 
look,  I  think,  is  more  juvenile.  As  to  stature, 
he  is  about  the  ordinary  height  of  men  ;  his 
lorm  genteel,  his  person  agile.  He  is  distin- 
guished by  a  quickness  of  look,  a  sprightly 
step,  and  that  peculiarly  jaunty  air,  which  I 
have  heretofore  mentioned,  as  characterizing 
the  people  of  New- York.  It  is  an  air,  however, 
which,  (perhaps,  because  I  am  a  plain  son  of 
John  Bull)}  is  not  entirely  to  my  taste.  Strik- 
ing, indeed,  it  is ;  highly  genteel,  and  calcu- 
lated for  eclat ;  but  then,  I  fear,  that  it,  may  be 
censured  as  being  to  artificial :  as  having, 
therefore,  too  little  appearance  of  connexion 
with  the  heart ;  too  little  of  that  amiable  sim- 
plicity, that  winning  softness,  that  vital  warmth, 
which  I  have  felt  in  the  manner  of  a  certain 
friend  of  mine.  This  objection,  however,  is 
not  meant  to  touch  his  heart.  I  do  not  mean 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  215 

o  censure  his  sensibility  or  his  virtues.  The 
remark  applies  only  to  the  mere  exterior  of 
his  manners  ;  and  even  the  censure  which  I 
have  pronounced  on  that,  is  purely  the  result 
of  a  different  taste,  which  is,  at  least,  as  proba- 
bly wrong  as  that  of  Mr 

Indeed,  my  dear  S ,  I  have  seen  few 

eminent  men  in  this  or  any  other  country,  who 
have  been  able  so  far  to  repress  the  exulting 
pride  of  conscious  talents,  as  to  put  on  the 
behaviour  which  is  calculated  to  win  the  hearts 
of  the  people.  I  mean  that  behaviour,  which 
steers  between  a  low-spirited,  cringing  syco- 
phancy and  ostentatious  condescension  on  the 
one  hand,  and  a  haughty  self-importance  and 
supercilious  contempt  of  one's  fellow  creatures 
on  the  other ;  that  behaviour,  in  which,  while 
a  man  displays  a  just  respect  for  his  own 
feelings  and  character,  he  seems,  nevertheless, 
to  concentre  himself  with  the  disposition  and 
inclination  of  the  person  to  whom  he  speaks  ; 
in  a  word,  that  happy  behaviour,  in  which 
versatility  and  candour,  modesty  and  dignity, 
are  sweetly  and  harmoniously  tempered  and 
blended.  Any  Englishman,  but  yourself,  my 

S ,  would  easily  recognize  the  original 

from  which  this  latter  picture  is  drawn. 


216  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

This  leads  me  off  from  the  character  of 

Mr .,  to  remark  a  moral  defect,  which  I 

have  several  times  observed  in  this  country. 
Many  well  meaning  men,  having  heard  much 
of  the  hollow,  ceremonious  professions  and 
hypocritical  grimace  of  courts ;  disgusted  with 
every  thing  which  savours  of  aristocratic  01 
monarchic  parade ;  and  smitten  with  the  love  of 
republican  simplicity  and  honesty  ;  have  fallen 
into  a  ruggedness  of  deportment,  a  thousand 
times  more  proud,  more  intolerable  and  dis- 
gusting, than  Shakspeare's  foppish  lord,  with 
his  chin  new  reaped  and  pouncet  box.  They 
scorn  to  conceal  their  thoughts ;  and  in  the 
expression  of  them  confound  bluntness  with 
honesty.  Their  opinions  are  all  dogmas.  It 
is  perfectly  immaterial  to  them  what  any  one 
else  may  think.  Nay,  many  of  them  seem  to 
have  forgotten,  that  others  can  think,  or  feel 
at  all.  In  pursuit  of  the  haggard  phantom  of 
republicanism,*  they  dash  on,  like  Sir  Joseph 
Banks,  giving  chase  to  the  emperor  of  Mo- 
rocco, regardless  of  the  sweet  and  tender  blos- 
soms of  sensibility,  which  fall  and  bleed,  and 


*  This  phrase  is  scarcely  excusable,  even  in  a  Briton  and 
a  lord. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  217 

die  behind  them.     What  an  error  is  this,  my 

dear  S !   I  am  frequently  disposed  to 

ask  such  men,  "think  you,  that  the  stern  and 
implacable  Achilles  was  an  honester  man  than 
the  gentle,  humane  and  considerate  Hector? 
Was  the  arrogant  and  imperious  Alexander  an 
honester  man  than  the  meek,  compassionate, 
and  amiable  Cyrus  ?  Was  the  proud,  the  rough, 
the  surly  Cato,  more  honest  than  the  soft, 
polite  and  delicate  Scipio  Africanus  ?  In  short, 
are  not  honesty  and  humanity  compatible? 
And  what  is  the  most  genuine  and  captivating 
politeness,  but  humanity  refined  ?" 

But  to  return  from  this  digression.     The 

qualities,  by  which  Mr strikes  the  mul 

titude,  are  his  ingenuity  and  his  wit.  But 
those,  who  look  more  closely  into  the  anatomy 
of  his  mind,  discover  many  properties  of  much 
higher  dignity  and  importance.  This  gentle- 
man, in  my  opinion,  unites  in  himself  a  greater 
diversity  of  talents  and  acquirements,  than  any 
other  at  the  bar  of  Virginia.  He  has  the  repu- 
tation, and  I  doubt  not  a  just  one,  of  possess- 
ing much  legal  science.  He  has  an  exquisite 
and  a  highly  cultivated  taste  for  polite  litera- 
ture ;  a  genius  quick  and  fertile ;  a  style  pure 

and  classic ;  a  stream  of  perspicuous  and  beau- 
19 


218  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

tiful  elocution ;  an  ingenuity  which  no  diffi- 
culties can  entangle  or  embarrass  ;  and  a  wit, 
whose  vivid  and  brilliant  coruscation,  can  gild 
and  decorate  the  darkest  subject.  He  chooses 
his  ground,  in  the  first  instance  with  great 
judgment ;  and  when,  in  the  progress  of  a 
cause,  an  unexpected  evolution  of  testimony, 
or  intermediate  decisions  from  the  bench,  have 
beaten  that  ground  from  under  him,  he  pos- 
sesses a  happy,  an  astonishing  versatility,  by 
which  he  is  enabled  at  once,  to  take  a  new 
position,  without  appearing  to  have  lost  an 
atom,  either  in  the  measure  or  stability  of  his 
basis.  This  is  a  faculty  which  I  have  ob- 
served before  in  an  inferior  degree*;  but 
Mr is  so  adroit,  so  superior  in  the  exe- 
cution of  it,  that  in  him  it  appears  a  new  and 
peculiar  talent ;  his  statements,  his  narrations, 
his  arguments,  are  all  as  transparent  as  the 
light  of  day.  He  reasons  logically,  and  de- 
claims very  handsomely.  It  is  true,  he  never 
brandishes  the  Olympic  thunder  of  Homer, 
but  then  he  seldom,  if  ever,  sinks  beneath  the 
chaste  and  attractive  majesty  of  Virgil. 

His  fault  is,  that  he  has  not  veiled  his  inge- 
nuity with  sufficient  address.  Hence,  I  am 
told,  that  he  is  considered  as  a  Proteus ;  and  the 


THK    BRITISH    SPY.  219 

courts  are  disposed  to  doubt  their  senses  even 
when  he  appears  in  his  proper  shape.  But  iii 
spite  of  this  adverse  and  unpropitious  distrust, 

M 's  popularity  is  still  in  its  flood ;  and 

he  is  justly  considered  as  an  honour  and  an 
ornament  to  his  profession. 

Adieu,  my  friend,  for  the  present.  Ere  long 
we  may  take  another  tour  through  this  gallery 
of  portraits,  if  more  interesting  objects  do  not 
call  us  off.  Again,  my  S ,  good  night. 


220  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 


LETTER  IX. 

Richmond,  October  30. 

TALENTS,  my  dear  S ,  wherever  the} 

have  had  a  suitable  theatre,  have  never  failed 
to  emerge  from  obscurity  and  assume  theii 
proper  rank  in  the  estimation  of  the  world. 
The  celebrated  Camden  is  said  to  have  been 
the  tenant  of  a  garret.  Yet  from  the  darkness, 
poverty  and  ignominy,  of  this  residence,  he 
advanced  to  distinction  and  wealth,  and  graced 
the  first  offices  and  titles  of  our  island.  It  is 
impossible  to  turn  over  the  British  biography, 
without  being  struck  and  charmed  by  the  mul- 
titude of  correspondent  examples  ;  a  venerable 
group  of  novi  homines ;  as  the  Romans  called 
them ;  men,  who,  from  the  lowest  depths  of 
obscurity  and  want,  and  without  even  the  in- 
fluence of  a  patron,  have  risen  to  the  first 
honours  of  their  country,  and  founded  their 
own  families  anew.  In  every  nation,  and  in 
every  age,  great  talents,  thrown  fairly  into  the 
point  of  public  observation,  will  invariably  pro- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  221 

duce  the  same  ultimate  effect.  The  jealous 
pride  of  power  may  attempt  to  repress  and 
crush  them ;  the  base  and  malignant  rancour 
of  impotent  spleen  and  envy  may  strive  to 
embarrass  and  retard  their  flight;  but  these 
efforts,  so  far  from  achieving  their  ignoble  pur 
pose,  so  far  from  producing  a  discernible  obli 
quity  in  the  ascent  of  genuine  and  vigorous 
talents,  will  serve  only  to  increase  their  mo- 
mentum and  mark  their  transit  with  an  addi- 
tional stream  of  glory. 

When  the  great  earl  of  Chatham  first  made 
his  appearance  in  our  house  of  commons,  and 
began  to  astonish  and  transport  the  British 
parliament,  and  the  British  nation,  by  the  bold- 
ness, the  force  and  range  of  his  thoughts,  and 
the  celestial  fire  and  pathos  of  his  eloquence, 
it  is  well  known,  that  the  minister  Walpole, 
and  his  brother  Horace,  (from  motives  very 
easily  understood,)  exerted  all  their  wit,  all 
their  oratory,  all  their  acquirements  of  every 
description,  sustained  and  enforced  by  the  un- 
feeling "insolence  of  office,"  to  heave  a  moun- 
tain on  his  gigantic  genius,  and  hide  it  from 
the  world.  Poor  and  powerless  attempt ! 
The  tables  were  turned.  He  rose  upon  them 

in  the  might  and  irresistible  energy  of  his 
19* 


222  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

genius ;  and  in  spite  of  all  their  convolutions, 
frantic  agonies  and  spasms,  he  strangled  them 
and  their  whole  faction  with  as  much  ease  as 
Hercules  did  the  serpent  ministers  of  jealousy 
that  were  sent  to  assail  his  infant  cradle.  Who 
can  turn  over  the  debates  of  the  day,  and  read 
the  account  of  this  conflict  between  youthful 
ardour  and  hoary  headed  cunning  and  power, 
without  kindling  in  the  cause  of  the  tyro,  and 
shouting  at  his  victory  ?  That  they  should 
have  attempted  to  pass  off  the  grand,  yet  solid 
and  judicious  operations  of  a  mind  like  his,  as 
being  mere  theatrical  start  and  emotion;  the 
giddy,  hair-brained  eccentricities  of  a  romantic 
boy  !  That  they  should  have  had  the  presump- 
tion to  suppose  themselves  capable  of  chaining 
down  to  the  floor  of  the  parliament,  a  genius  so 
ethereal,  towering,  and  sublime  !  Why  did  they 
not,  in  the  next  breath,  by  way  of  crowning 
the  climax  of  vanity,  bid  the  magnificent  fire- 
ball to  descend  from  its  exalted  and  appropriate 
region,  to  perform  its  splendid  tour  along  tho 
surface  of  the  earth  1* 

*  See  a  beautiful  note  in  Darwin's  Botanic  Garden,  in 
which  the  writer  suggests  the  probability  of  three  concen- 
tric strata  of  our  atmosphere,  in  which,  or  between  them, 
are  produced  four  kinds  of  meteors ;  in  the  lowest,  the  com- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  2*23 

When  the  son  of  this  great  man  too,  our 
present  minister  and  his  compeer  and  rival, 
our  friend,  first  commenced  their  political  ca- 
reer, the  public  papers  teemed  with  strictures 
on  their  respective  talents  ;  the  first  was  cen 
sured  as  being  merely  a  dry  and  even  a  flimsy 
reasoner ;  the  last  was  stigmatized  as  an 
empty  declaimer.  But  error  and  misrepresent- 
ation soon  expire,  and  are  forgotten ;  while 
truth  rises  upon  their  ruins,  and  "  flourishes 
in  eternal  youth."  Thus,  the  false,  the  light, 
fugacious  newspaper  criticisms,  which  at- 
tempted to  dissect  and  censure  the  arrange- 
ment of  those  gentlemen's  talents,  have  been 
long  since  swept  away  by  the  besom  of  ob- 
livion. They  wanted  truth,  that  soul,  which 
alone  can  secure  immortality  to  any  literary 

mon  lightning ;  in  the  next,  shooting  stars ;  and  the  highest 
region,  which  he  supposes  to  consist  of  inflammable  gas 
tenfold  ligher  than  the  common  atmospheric  air,  he  makes 
the  theatre  of  the  northern  light,  and  fireball  or  draco  volans. 
He  recites  the  history  of  one  of  the  latter,  seen  in  the  year 
1758,  which  was  estimated  to  have  been  a  mile  and  a  half  in 
circumference;  to  have  been  one  hundred  miles  high ;  and 
to  have  moved  toward  the  north,  thirty  miles  in  a  second. 
It  had  a  real  tail,  many  miles  long,  which  threw  off  sparks 
in  its  course ;  and  the  whole  exploded  with  a  sound  like  that 
of  distant  thunder. — Bot.  Garden,  Part  1,  Note  1. 


224  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

work.  And  Mr.  Pitt  and  Mr.  Fox  have  for 
many  years  been  reciprocally  and  alternately 
recognized,  just  as  their  subject  demands  it, 
either  as  close  and  cogent  reasoners,  or  as 
beautiful  and  superb  rhetoricians. 

Talents,  therefore,  which  are  before  the  pub- 
lic, have  nothing  to  dread,  either  from  the 
jealous  pride  of  power,  or  from  the  transient 
misrepresentations  of  party,  spleen,  or  envy. 
In  spite  of  opposition  from  any  cause,  their 
buoyant  spirit  will  lift  them  to  their  proper 
grade  :  it  would  be  unjust  that  it  should  lift 
them  higher. 

It  is  true,  there  always  are,  and  always  will 
be,  in  every  society,  individuals,  who  will 
fancy  themselves  examples  of  genius  over 
looked,  underrated,  or  invidiously  oppressed. 
But  the  misfortune  of  such  persons  is  imputa- 
ble  to  their  own  vanity,  and  not  to  the  public 
opinion,  which  has  weighed  and  graduated 
them. 

We  remember  many  of  our  schoolmates, 
whose  geniuses  bloomed  and  died  within 
the  walls  of  Alma  Mater  ;  but  whose  bodies 
still  live,  the  moving  monuments  of  departed 
splendour,  the  animated  and  affecting  remem- 
brances of  the  extreme  fragility  of  the  human 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  225 

intellect.  We  remember  others,  who  have  en- 
tered on  public  life  with  the  most  exulting 
promise ;  have  flown  from  the  earth,  like 
rockets  ;  and,  after  a  short  and  brilliant  flight, 
have  bursted  with  one  or  two  explosions — to 
blaze  no  more.  Others,  by  a  few  premature 
scintillations  of  thought,  have  led  themselves 
and  their  partial  friends,  to  hope  that  they  were 
fast  advancing  to  a  dawn  of  soft  and  beauteous 
light,  and  a  meridian  of  bright  and  gorgeous 
effulgence  ;  but  their  day  has  never  yet  broken  ; 
and  never  will  it  break.  They  are  doomed  for 
ever  to  that  dim,  crepuscular  light,  which  sur- 
rounds the  frozen  poles,  when  the  sun  has 
retreated  to  the  opposite  circle  of  the  heavens. 
Theirs  is  the  eternal  glimmering  of  the  brain  ; 
and  their  most  luminous  displays  are  the 
faint  twinklings  of  the  glow-worm.  We  have 
seen  others,  who,  at  their  start,  gain  a  casual 
projectility,  which  rises  them  above  their 
proper  grade  ;  but  by  the  just  operation  of  their 
specific  gravity,  they  are  made  to  subside  again, 
and  settle  ultimately  in  the  sphere  to  which 
they  properly  belong. 

All  these  characters,  and  many  others  who 
have  had  even  slighter  bases  for  their  once 
sanguine,  but  now  blasted  hopes,  form  a  quer- 


226  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

ulous  and  melancholy  band  of  moonstruck  de* 
claimers  against  the  injustice  of  the  world,  the 
agency  of  envy,  the  force  of  destiny,  &c., 
charging  their  misfortune  on  every  thing  but 
the  true  cause :  their  own  want  of  intrinsic 
sterling  merit;  their  want  of  that  copious, 
perennial  spring  of  great  and  useful  thought, 
without  which  a  man  may  hope  in  vain  for 
growing  reputation.  Nor  are  they  always 
satisfied  with  wailing  their  own  destiny,  pour- 
ing out  the  bitterest  imprecations  of  their  souls 
on  the  cruel  stars  which  presided  at  their 
birth,  and  aspersing  the  justice  of  the  public 
opinion  which  has  scaled  them :  too  often  in 
the  contortions  and  pangs  of  disappointed  am- 
bition, they  cast  a  scowling  eye  over  the 
world  of  man ;  start  back  and  blanch  at  the 
lustre  of  superior  merit ;  and  exert  all  the 
diabolical  incantations  of  their  black  art,  to 
conjure  up  an  impervious  vapour,  in  order  to 
shroud  its  glories  from  the  world.  But  it  is 
all  in  vain.  .  In  spite  of  every  thing,  the  pub- 
lic opinion  will  finally  do  justice  to  us  all, 
The  man  who  comes  fairly  before  the  world, 
and  who  possesses  the  great  and  vigorous 
stamina  which  entitle  him  to  a  nick  in  the 
temple  of  glory,  has  no  reason  to  dread  the 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  227 

ultimate  result ;  however  slow  his  progress 
may  be,  he  will  in  the  end  most  indubitably 
receive  that  distinction.  While  the  rest,  "  the 
swallows  of  science,"  the  butterflies  of  genius, 
may  flutter  for  their  spring  ;  but  they  will  soon 
pass  away  and  be  remembered  no  more.  No 
enterprising  man,  therefore,  (and  least  of  all 
the  truly  great  man,)  has  reason  to  droop  or 
repine  at  any  efforts  which  he  may  suppose 
to  be  made  with  the  view  to  depress  him  ; 
since  he  may  rely  on  the  universal  and  un- 
changing truth,  that  talents,  which  are  before 
the  world,  will  most  inevitably  find  their  pro- 
per level ;  and  this  is,  certainly,  all  that  a  just 
man  should  desire.  Let,  then,  the  tempest  of 
envy  or  of  malice  howl  around  him.  His 
genius  will  consecrate  him  ;  and  any  attempt 
to  extinguish  that,  will  be  as  unavailing  as 
would  a  human  effort  "  to  quench  the  stars." 

I  have  been  led  further  into  these  reflections 
than  I  had  anticipated.  The  tram  was  started 
by  casting  my  eyes  over  Virginia ;  observing 
the  very  few  who  have  advanced  on  the  thea- 
tre of  public  observation,  and  the  veiy  many 
who  will  remain  for  ever  behind  the  scenes. 

What  frequent  instances  of  high,  native 
genius  have  I  seen  springing  in  the  wilder- 


228  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

nesses  of  this  country ;  genius,  whose  bios 
soms  the  light  of  science  has  never  courted 
into  expansion ;  genius,  which  is  doomed  to 
fall  and  die,  far  from  the  notice  and  the  haunts 
of  men  !  How  often,  as  I  have  held  my  way 
through  the  western  forests  of  this  state,  and 
reflected  on  the  vigorous  shoots  of  superior 
intellect,  which  were  freezing  and  perishing 
there  for  the  want  of  culture ;  how  often  have 
I  recalled  the  moment,  when  our  pathetic 
Gray,  reclining  under  the  mouldering  elm  of 
his  country  churchyard,  while  the  sigh  of 
genial  sympathy  broke  from  his  heart,  and 
the  tear  of  noble  pity  started  in  his  eye,  ex 
claimed, 

"  Perhaps  in  this  neglected  spot  is  laid 

Some  heart  once  pregnant  with  celestial  fare, 
Hands  that  the  rod  of  empire  might  have  sway'd, 
Or  wak'd  to  ecstacy  the  living  lyre. 

But  knowledge  to  their  eyes,  her  ample  page, 
Rich  with  the  spoils  of  time,  did  ne'er  unroll ; 

Chill  penury  repress'd  their  noble  rage, 
And  froze  the  genial  current  of  their  soul. 

Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene, 

The  dark,  unfathom'd  caves  of  ocean  bear ;  » 

Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen, 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  229 

Some  village  Hampden,  that  with  dauntless  breast, 
The  little  tyrant  of  his  fields  withstood' 

Some  mute,  inglorious  Milton,  here  may  rest; 
Some  Cromwell,  guiltless  of  his  country's  blood. 

Th'  applause  of  list'ning  senates  to  command, 
The  threats  of  pain  and  ruin  to  despise, 

To  scatter  plenty  o'er  a  smiling  land, 
And  read  their  history  in  a  nation's  eyes. 

Their  lot  forbade"— 

The  heart  of  a  philanthropist,  no  matter  to 
what  country  or  what  form  of  government  he 
may  belong,  immediately  inquires,  "And  is 
there  no  mode  to  prevent  this  melancholy 
waste  of  talents  ?  Is  there  no  mode  by  which 
the  rays  of  science  might  be  so  diffused  over 
the  state,  as  to  call  forth  each  latent  bud  into 
life  and  luxuriance  ?"  There  is  such  a  mode : 
and  what  renders  the  legislature  of  this  state 
still  more  inexcusable,  the  plan  by  which  these 
important  purposes  might  be  effected,  has  been 
drawn  out  and  has  lain  by  them  for  nearly 
thirty  years.  The  declaration  of  the  inde 
pendence  of  this  commonwealth  was  made  in 
the  month  of  May,  1776.*  In  the  fall  of  that 


*  This  is  a  fact  which  the  public  journals  of  the  state 
established  beyond  controversy ;  although  the  legal  process 

20 


230  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

year,  a  statute,  or,  as  it  is  called  here,  "  an  acl 
of  assembly,"  was  made,  providing  that  a 
committee  of  five  persons  should  be  appointed 
to  prepare  a  code  of  laws,  adapted  to  the  change 
of  the  state  government.  This  code  was  to  • 
be  submitted  to  the  legislature  of  the  country, 
and  to  be  ratified  or  rejected  by  their  suffrage. 

In  the  ensuing  November,  by  a  resolution 
of  the  same  legislature,  Thomas  Jefferson, 
Edmund  Pendleton,  George  Wythe,  George 
Mason  and  Thomas  Ludwell  Lee,  esquires, 
were  appointed  a  committee  to  execute  the 
work  in  question.  It  was  prepared  by  the 
three  first  named  gentlemen ;  the  first  of  them 
now  the  President  of  the  United  States  ;  the 
second,  the  president  of  the  supreme  court  of 
appeals  of  Virginia,  and  the  third,  the  judge  of 
the  high  court  of  chancery  at  this  place. 

I  have  perused  this  system  of  state  police 
with  admiration.  It  is  evidently  the  work  of 
minds  of  most  astonishing  greatness ;  capable, 
at  once,  of  a  grand,  profound  and  comprehen- 
sive survey  of  the  present  and  future  interest 

and  other  public  acts  of  Virginia  modestly  waive  this  pre- 
cedence, and  date  the  foundation  of  the  commonwealth  on 
the  4th  of  July,  1776,  the  day  on  which  the  declaration  of  the 
independence  of  the  United  States  was  promulged. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  231 

and  glory  of  the  whole  state  ;  and  of  pursuing 
that  interest  and  glory  through  all  the  remote 
and  minute  ramifications  of  the  extensive  and 
elaborate  detail. 

-  Among  other  wise  and  highly  patriotic  bills 
which  are  proposed,  there  is  one  for  the  more 
general  diffusion  of  knowledge.  After  a  pre- 
amble, in  which  the  importance  of  the  subject 
to  the  republic  is  most  ably  and  eloquently 
announced,  the  bill  proposes  a  simple  and 
beautiful  scheme,  whereby  science  (like  justice 
under  the  institutions  of  our  Alfred)  would 
have  been  "carried  to  every  man's  door." 
Genius,  instead  of  having  to  break  its  way 
through  the  thick  opposing  clouds  of  native 
obscurity,  indigence  and  ignorance,  was  to  be 
sought  for  through  every  family  hi  the  com- 
monwealth ;  the  sacred  spark,  wherever  it  was 
detected,  was  to  be  tenderly  cherished,  fed  and 
fanned  into  a  flame ;  its  innate  properties  and 
tendencies  were  to  be  developed  and  examined, 
and  then  cautiously  and  judiciously  invested 
with  all  the  auxiliary  energy  and  radiance  of 
which  its  character  was  susceptible. 

What  a  plan  was  here  to  give  stability  and 
solid  glory  to  the  republic !  If  you  ask  me  why 
it  has  never  been  adopted,  I  answer,  that  as  a 


232  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

foreigner,  1  can  perceive  no  possible  reason  for 
it,  except  that  the  comprehensive  views  and 
generous  patriotism  which  produced  the  bill, 
have  not  prevailed  throughout  the  country, 
nor  presided  in  the  body  on  whose  vote  the 
adoption  of  the  bill  depended.  I  have  new 
reason  to  remark  it,  almost  every  day,  that 
there  is  throughout  Virginia,  a  most  deplorable 
destitution  of  public  spirit,  of  the  noble  pride 
and  love  of  country.  Unless  the  body  of  the 
people  can  be  awakened  from  this  fatal  apathy ; 
unless  their  thoughts  and  their  feelings  can  be 
urged  beyond  the  narrow  confines  of  their  own 
private  affairs;  unless  they  can  be  strongly 
inspired  with  the  public  zeal,  the  amor  patrice, 
of  the  ancient  republics,  the  national  embellish- 
ment, and  the  national  grandeur  of  this  opu- 
lent state,  must  be  reserved  for  very  distant 
ages.  . 

Adieu,  my  S ;  perhaps  you  will  hear 

from  me  again  before  I  leave  Richmond. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  233 


AN  APOLOGY 

IN   REPLY   TO   A    HINT. 

THE  letters  of  the  British  Spy  were  furnished 
to  amuse  the  citizens  of  the  town  and  country, 
and  not  to  give  pain  to  any  one  human  being. 
Accordingly,  nothing  has  been  said  in  censure 
of  the  integrity,  the  philanthropy,  benevolence, 
charity,  or  any  other  moral  or  religious  virtue 
or  grace  of  any  one  Virginian,  who  has  been 
introduced  into  those  letters.  Nothing,  indeed, 
could  be  justly  said  on  those  heads,  in  censure 
of  either  of  the  gentlemen.  It  is  true,  that 
some  letters  have  been  published,  which  have 
attempted  to  analyze  the  minds  of  three  or  four 
well  known  citizens  of  this  state,  and  in  order 
to  designate  them  more  particularly,  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  person  and  manner  of  each  gentle- 
man was  given.  This  has  been  called  "throw- 
ing stones  at  other  people's  glass  houses,"  and 
the  person  who  has  communicated  those  letters 
(gratuitously  styled  their  "  author")  is  politely 
reminded  that  he  himself  resides  "in  a  glass 

house." 

20* 


234  THE    BRITISH    SHY. 

If  this  be  correctly  understood,  it  implies  a 
threat  of  retaliation  ;  but  all  that  the  laws  of 
retaliation  could  justify,  would  be  to  amuse 
the  town  and  country  with  a  description  of 
the  person,  manner  and  mind  of  the  author 
(as  he  is  called)  of  the  British  Spy.  He  fears, 
however,  that  it  would  puzzle  the  hinter,  what- 
ever his  genius  may  be,  to  render  so  barren  a 
subject  interesting  and  amusing  to  the  public ; 
and  he  would  be  much  obliged  to  the  hinter  if 
he  could  make  it  appear  that  he  (the  furnisher 
of  the  letters)  deserves  to  be  drawn  into  com- 
parison, either  as  to  person,  manner,  or  mind, 
with  any  one  of  the  gentlemen  delineated  by 
the  British  Spy.  As  to  his  person,  indeed,  he 
is  less  solicitous ;  the  defects  of  that  were  im- 
posed on  him  by  nature ;  and  there  is  no 
principle  better  established  than  this  general 
principle  of  eternal  truth  and  justice,  that  no 
man  ought  to  be  censured  for  the  contingencies 
over  which  he  had  no  controut.  As  to  his 
manner,  he  has  as  little  objection  to  a  public 
description  of  that  as  his  person. 

To  save  the  trouble  of  others,  however,  he 
relinquishes  all  pretensions  either  to  the  striking 
elegance  which  is  calculated  to  excite  admira- 
tion and  respect,  or  to  the  conciliating  grace 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  235 

and  vital  warmth  which  are  qualified  to  gain 
enthusiastic  friends.  His  manner  is  probably 
such  as  would  be  produced,  nine  times  out  of 
ten,  by  the  rustic  education  to  which  he  was 
exposed. 

As  to  his  mind,  it  is  almost  such  as  nature 
made  it.  He  cannot  boast  with  Gray,  that 
"science  frowned  not  on  his  humble  birth." 
But  what  of  this '?  A  man  may  very  accurately 
anatomize  the  powers  of  a  mind  far  superior 
to  his  own.  It  is  not  improbable  Zoilus's  criti- 
cisms of  Homer  were  just ;  since  every  nod  of 
Homer's  was  a  fair  subject  of  criticism.  Yet 
who  will  suppose  that  Zoilus  would  have  pro- 
duced such  a  work  as  the  Iliad?  It>is  impos- 
sible to  read  Dennis's  criticisms  of  Addison's 
Cato  without  being  forcibly  struck  with  then- 
justice,  and  wondering  that  they  have  never 
before  occurred  to  ourselves.  Yet  there  is  no 
man,  who  will  therefore  pronounce  the  genius 
of  Dennis  equal  to  that  of  Addison.  These 
facts  are  so  palpable  and  so  well  understood, 
that  the  person  who  furnished  the  letters  of  the 
British  Spy  (even  if  he  had  been  their  author) 
could  scarcely  have  had  the  presumption  to 
suppose,  nor,  I  trust,  the  injustice  to  desire,  that 
the  public  would  pronounce  his  mind  free 


236  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

from  the  defects,  much  less  indued  with  the 
energies  and  beauties  of  those  which  he  criti- 
cises. 

But  where  is  the  harm  which  has  been 
done?  Who  are  the  gentlemen  introduced 
into  the  British  Spy  ?  Are  they  young  men 
just  emerging  into  notice,  and  concerning 
whom  the  public  have  yet  to  form  an  opinion  ? 
Far  from  it.  They  are  gentlemen,  who  have 
long  been,  and  who  still  are  displaying  them- 
selves in  the  very  centre  of  the  circle  of  general 
observation.  They  have  not  hid  their  light 
under  a  bushel.  Their  city  is  built  on  a  high 
hill.  There  is  not  a  feature  of  their  persons, 
nor  a  quality  of  their  mind  or  manner,  which 
has  not  been  long  and  well  known,  and  re- 
marked, commented  on,  criticised,  repeated  and 
reiterated  a  thousand  and  ten  thousand  times 
in  every  circle  and  every  corner  of  the  country. 

Was  it  in  the  power,  then,  of  any  remarks 
in  an  anonymous  and  fugitive  newspaper  pub- 
lication, either  to  injure  or  serve  gentlemen  so 
well  and  so  eminently  known  ?  On  the  con- 
trary, if  those  remarks  were  untrue,  they  would 
be  instantaneously  and  infallibly  corrected  by 
the  public  opinon  and  knowledge  of  the  sub- 
ject ;  if  the  remarks  were  true,  they  would  add 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  237 

no  new  fact  to  the  public  opinion  and  the  public 
knowledge.  Thinking  thus,  nothing  was  more 
distant,  either  from  the  expectation  or  wish  of 
the  person  who  has  furnished  the  press  with 
the  letters  of  the  British  Spy,  than  that  he  was 
about  to  do  an  injury  to  the  character,  or  to 
inflict  a  wound  on  the  feelings  of  any  citizen  of 
the  country.  Why  could  he  have  expected  or 
wished  any  such  effect  ?  He  could  not  have 
been  actuated  by  resentment ;  for  neither  of 
those  gentlemen  have  ever  done  him  an  injury. 
He  could  not  have  been  moved  by  personal 
interest ;  since  his  conscious  inferiority,  as  well 
as  the  nature  of  his  pursuits,  remove  him  far 
from  the  possibility  of  being  ever  brought  into 
collision  with  either  of  those  gentlemen.  He 
could  not  have  been  impelled  by  diabolical 
envy,  or  the  malicious  agony  of  blasted  ambi- 
tion ;  since  his  country  has  already  distinguish- 
ed him  far,  very  far,  beyond  his  desert.  And 
of  the  malevolence  of  heart  which  could  inten- 
tionally do  a  wicked,  a  wanton  and  unpro- 
voked injury,  he  is  persuaded  that  either  of  the 
gentlemen,  if  they  knew  him,  would  most 
freely  and  cheerfully  acquit  him. 

If  he  be  asked  why  he  published  the  letters 
describing  those  characters  ?     He  answers, 


238  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

First,  For  the  same  reason  that  he  would,  if 
he  could,  present  to  the  town  a  set  of  landscape 
paintings,  representing  all  the  lovely  prospects 
which  belong  to  their  beautiful  city ;  to  furnish 
them  with  the  amusement  and  pleasure  which 
arise  from  surveying  an  accurate  picture  of  a 
well  known  original :  and  this  implies,  that  he 
could  not  have  believed  himself  adding  new 
information  as  to  the  originals  themselves. 

Secondly,  He  hoped  that  the  abstracted  and 
miscellaneous  remarks,  which  were  blended 
with  the  description  of  those  characters,  might 
not  be  without  their  use  to  the  many  literary 
young  men  who  are  growing  up  in  Virginia. 

If  the  letters  of  the  British  Spy  have  gone 
beyond  these  purposes ;  if  they  have  given 
pain  to  the  gentlemen  described ;  (for  as  to 
doing  them  an  injury,  it  is  certainly  out  of  the 
question,)  there  is  no  man  in  the  community 
disposed  to  regret  it  more  sensibly  than  the 
man  who  furnished  those  letters  for  publication. 

But  while  honour  and  justice  compel  the 
writer  of  this  article  to  give  these  explana- 
tions, and  make  these  acknowledgments  to 
the  gentlemen  immediately  interested,  he  begs 
he  may  not  be  considered  as  descending  to  the 
meanness  of  begging  mercy  on  his  own  "  glass 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  239 

house*"  On  the  contrary,  the  person  who  has 
published  the  polite  hint  in  question,  is  wel 
come  to  commence  his  assault  as  soon  as  he 
pleases.  He  can  scarcely  point  out  one  defect 
in  the  person,  manner,  or  mind  of  this  writer, 
of  which  he  is  not  already  conscious.  And  if 
he  meant  by  his  menace  any  thing  more  ;  if  he 
meant  to  insinuate  a  suspicion  to  the  public, 
that  the  honesty,  integrity,  or  moral  purity,  of 
the  man  who  furnished  the  letters  of  the  British 
Spy  for  publication,  are  assailable  on  any 
ground  of  truth ;  if  such  was  his  intention  he 
has  intended  an  injury,  at  which  this  writer 
laughs  in  proud  security  ;  an  injury,  for  which 
his  own  heart,  if  it  be  a  good  one,  will  not  for- 
give him  so  soon,  as  will  the  heart  of  the  man 
whom  he  has  attempted  to  injure. 

The  writer  of  this  article  tenders  in  return 
this  hint  to  the  hinter ;  that  before  he  com- 
mences his  hostile  operations,  he  will  be  sure 
of  his  man.  As  to  the  person  who  really  did 
furnish  the  British  Spy — the  finger  of  conjec- 
ture has  been  erroneously  pointed  at  several  who 
reside  in  this  state.  It  would  be  unjust  and 
barbarous  to  punish  the  innocent  for  the  guilty, 
if  guilt  can  be  justly  charged  on  the  British  Spy. 


240  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 


LETTER  X. 

Richmond,  December  10. 

IN  one  of  my  late  rides  into  the  surrounding 
country,  I  stopped  at  a  little  inn  to  refresh  my- 
self and  my  horse ;  and,  as  the  landlord  was 
neither  a  Boniface,  nor  "  mine  host  of  the  gar- 
ter," I  called  for  a  book,  by  way  of  killing  tune, 
while  the  preparations  for  my  repast  were  going 
forward.  He  brought  me  a  shattered  fragment 
of  the  second  volume  of  the  Spectator,  which 
he  told  me  was  the  only  book  in  the  house,  for 
"  he  never  troubled  his  head  about  reading ;" 
and  by  way  of  conclusive  proof,  he  further 
informed  me,  that  this  fragment,  the  only  book 
in  the  house,  had  been  sleeping  unmolested  in 
the  dust  of  his  mantel-piece,  for  ten  or  fifteen 
years.  I  could  not  meet  my  venerable  country- 
man, in  a  foreign  land,  and  in  this  humiliating 
plight,  nor  hear  of  the  inhuman  and  gothic 
contempt  with  which  he  had  been  treated, 
without  the  liveliest  emotion.  So  I  read  my 
host  a  lecture  on  the  subject,  to  which  he 
appeared  to  pay  as  little  attention  as  he  had 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  24" 

before  done  to  the  Spectator ;  and,  with  the 
sang  froid  of  a  Dutchman,  answered  me  hi 
the  cant  of  the  country,  that  he  "had  other  fish 
to  fry,"  and  left  me. 

It  had  been  so  long  since  I  had  had  an  op- 
portunity of  opening  that  agreeable  collection, 
that  the  few  numbers  which  were  now  before 
me,  appeared  almost  entirely  new ;  and  I  cannot 
describe  to  you,  the  avidity  and  delight  with 
which  I  devoured  those  beautiful  and  interest- 
ing speculations. 

Is  it  not  strange,  my  dear  S ,  that 

such  a  work  should  have  ever  lost  an  inch  of 
ground  ?  A  style  so  sweet  and  simple,  and  yet 
so  ornamented !  a  temper  so  benevolent,  so 
cheerful,  so  exhilarating !  a  body  of  knowledge, 
and  of  original  thought,  so  immense  and  vari- 
ous !  so  strikingly  just,  so  universally  useful ! 
What  person,  of  any  age,  sex,  temper,  calling, 
or  pursuit,  can  possibly  converse  with  the 
Spectator,  without  being  conscious  of  imme- 
diate improvement  ? 

To  the  spleen,  he  is  as  perpetual  and  never- 
failing  an  antidote,  as  he  is  to  ignorance  and 
immorality.  No  matter  for  the  disposition  of 
mind  in  which  you  take  him  up ;  you  catch,  as 

you  go  along,  the  happy  tone  of  spirits  which 
21 


242  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

prevt  is  throughout  the  work ;  you  pmile  at 
the  wit,  laugh  at  the  drollery,  feel  your  mind 
enlightened,  your  heart  opened,  softened  and 
refined ;  and  when  you  lay  him  down,  you  are 
sure  to  be  in  a  better  humour,  both  with  your- 
self and  every  body  else.  I  have  never  men- 
tioned the  subject  to  a  reader  of  the  Spectator, 
who  did  not  admit  this  to  be  the  invariable 
process ;  and  in  such  a  world  of  misfortunes, 
of  cares,  and  sorrows,  and  guilt,  as  this  is,  what 
a  prize  would  this  collection  be,  if  it  were  rightly 
estimated ! 

Were  I  the  sovereign  of  a  nation,  which 
spoke  the  English  language,  and  wished  my 
subjects  cheerful,  virtuous  and  enlightened,  I 
would  furnish  every  poor  family  in  my  domi- 
nions (and  see  that  the  rich  furnished  them- 
selves) with  a  copy  of  the  Spectator ;  and 
ordain  that  the  parents  or  children  should  read 
four  or  five  numbers,  aloud,  every  night  in  the 
year.  For  one  of  the  peculiar  perfections  of 
the  work  is,  that  while  it  contains  such  a  mass 
of  ancient  and  modern  learning,  so  much  of 
profound  wisdom,  and  of  beautiful  composition, 
yet  there  is  scarcely  a  number  throughout  the 
eight  volumes,  which  is  not  level  to  the 
meanest  capacity.  Another  perfection  is,  that 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  243 

the  Spectator  will  never  become  tiresome  to 
any  one  whose  taste  and  whose  heart  remain 
uncorrupted. 

I  do  not  mean  that  this  author  should  be 
read  to  the  exclusion  of  others  ;  much  less  that 
he  should  stand  in  the  way  of  the  generous 
pursuit  of  science,  or  interrupt  the  discharge  of 
social  or  private  duties.  All  the  counsels  of  the 
work  itself  have  a  directly  reverse  tendency. 
It  furnishes  a  store  of  the  clearest  argument 
and  of  the  most  amiable  and  captivating  ex- 
hortations, "  to  raise  the  genius,  and  to  mend 
the  heart."  I  regret,  only,  that  such  a  book 
should  be  thrown  by,  and  almost  entirely  for- 
gotten, while  the  gilded  blasphemies  of  infidels, 
and  "the  noontide  trances"  of  penicious  theo- 
rists, are  hailed  with  rapture,  and  echoed  around 
the  world.  For  such,  I  should  be  pleased  to 
see  the  Spectator  universally  substituted  :  and, 
throwing  out  of  the  question  its  morality,  its 
literary  information,  its  sweetly  contagious 
serenity,  and  the  pure  and  chaste  beauties  of 
its  style ;  and  considering  it  merely  as  a  curi- 
osity, as  concentring  the  brilliant  sports  of  the 
finest  cluster  of  geniuses  that  ever  graced  the 
earth,  it  surely  deserves  perpetual  attention, 
respect  and  consecration 


244  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

There  is,  methinks,  my  S ,  a  great 

fault  in  the  world,  as  it  respects  this  subject : 
a  giddy  instability,  a  light  and  fluttering  vanity, 
a  prurient  longing  after  novelty,  an  impatience, 
a  disgust,  a  fastidious  contempt  of  every  thing 
that  is  old.  You  will  not  understand  me  as 
censuring  the  progress  of  sound  science.  I  am 
not  so  infatuated  an  antiquarian,  nor  so  poor  a 
philanthropist,  as  to  seek  to  retard  the  expansion 
of  the  human  mind.  But  I  lament  the  eternal 
oblivion  into  which  our  old  authors,  those 
giants  of  literature,  are  permitted  to  sink,  while 
the  world  stands  open-eyed  and  open-mouthed 
to  catch  every  modern,  tinselled  abortion  as  it 
falls  from  the  press.  In  the  polite  circles  of 
America,  for  instance,  perhaps  there  is  no  want  of 
taste,  and  even  zeal,  for  letters.  I  have  seen  seve- 
ral gentlemen  who  appear  to  have  an  accurate, 
a  minute  acquaintance  with  the  whole  range  of 
literature,  in  its  present  state  of  improvement : 
yet,  you  will  be  surprised  to  hear,  that  I  have 
not  met  with  more  than  one  or  two  persons  in 
this  country,  who  have  ever  read  the  works  of 
Bacon  or  of  Boyle.  They  delight  to  saunter 
in  the  upper  story,  sustained  and  adorned,  as  it 
is,  with  the  delicate  proportions,  the  foliage  and 
flourishes  of  the  Corinthian  order ;  but  they 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  245 

disdain  to  make  any  acquaintance,  or  hold 
communion  at  all,  with  the  Tuscan  and  Doric 
plainness  and  strength  which  base  and  support 
the  whole  edifice. 

As  to  lord  Yerulam,  when  he  is  considered 
as  the  father  of  experimental  philosophy;  as 
the  champion,  whose  vigour  battered  down  the 
idolized  chimeras  of  Aristotle,  together  with  all 
the  appendant  and  immeasurable  webs  of  the 
brain,  woven  and  hung  upon  them,  by  the  in- 
genious dreamers  of  the  schools  ;  as  the  hero 
who  not  only  rescued  and  redeemed  the  world 
from  all  this  darkness,  jargon,  perplexity  and 
error;  but,  from  the  stores  of  his  own  great 
mind,  poured  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  earth, 
straightened  the  devious  paths  of  science,  and 
planned  the  whole  paradise,  which  we  now 
find  so  full  of  fragrance,  beauty  and  grandeur : 
when  he  is  considered,  I  say,  hi  these  points 
of  view,  I  am  astonished  that  literary  gentlemen 
do  not  court  his  acquaintance,  if  not  through 
reverence,  at  least  through  curiosity.  The 
person  who  does  so  will  find  every  period  filled 
with  pure  and  solid  golden  bullion  :  that  bid- 
lion,  which  several  much  admired  posterior 
writers  have  merely  moulded  into  various  formsj 
21* 


246  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

or  beaten  in*o  leaf,  and  taught  to  spread  ita 
floating  splendours  to  the  sun. 

This  insatiate  palate  for  novelty  which  I  have 
mentioned,  has  had  a  very  striking  effect  on 
the  style  of  modern  productions.  The  plain 
language  of  easy  conversation  will  no  longei 
do.  The  writer  who  contends  for  fame,  01 
even  for  truth,  is  obliged  to  consult  the  reigning 
taste  of  the  day.  Hence  too  often,  in  opposi- 
tion to  his  own  judgment,  he  is  led  to  encum- 
ber his  ideas  with  a  gorgeous  load  of  orna- 
ments ;  and  when  he  would  present  to  the 
public  a  body  of  pure,  substantial  and  useful 
thought,  he  finds  himself  constrained  to  encrust 
and  bury  its  utility  within  a  dazzling  case ;  to 
convert  a  feast  of  reason  into  a  concert  of 
sounds :  a  rich  intellectual  boon  into  a  mere 
bouquet  of  variegated  pinks  and  blushing  roses. 
In  his  turn  he  contributes  to  establish  and 
spread  wider  the  perversion  of  the  public  taste  ; 
and  thus,  on  a  principle  resembling  that  of 
action  and  reaction,  the  author  and  the  public 
reciprocate  the  injury ;  just  as,  in  the  licentious 
reign  of  our  Charles  the  2d,  the  dramatist 
and  his  audience  were  wont  to  poison  each 
other. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  247 

A  history  of  style  would  indeed  be  a  curious 
and  highly  interesting  one :  I  mean  a  philoso- 
phical, as  well  as  chronological  history;  one 
which,  beside  marking  the  gradations,  changes 
and  fluctuations  exhibited  hi  the  style  of  differ- 
ent ages  and  different  countries,  should  open 
the  regular  or  contingent  causes  of  all  those 
gradations,  changes  and  fluctuations.  I  should 
oe  particularly  pleased  to  see  a  learned  and 
penetrating  mind  employed  on  the  question: 
Whether  the  gradual  adornment,  which  we 
observe  in  a  nation's  style,  result  from  the  pro- 
gress of  science  ;  or  whether  there  be  an  in- 
fancy, a  youth,  and  a  manhood,  in  a  nation's 
sensibility,  which  rising  in  a  distant  age,  like 
a  newborn  billow,  rolls  on  through  succeeding 
generations,  with  accumulating  height  and 
force,  and  bears  along  with  it  the  concurrent 
expression  of  that  sensibility,  until  they  both 
swell  and  tower  into  the  sublime — and  some- 
times break  into  the  bathos. 

The  historical  facts,  as  well  as  the  meta- 
physical consideration  of  the  subject,  perplex 
these  questions  extremely ;  and,  as  Sir  Roger 
de  Coverly  says,  "  much  may  be  said  on  both 
sides."  For  the  present  I  shall  say  nothing  on 
either ;  except  that  from  some  of  Mr.  Blair's 


248  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

remarks,  it  would  seem  that  neither  of  thosi 
hypotheses  will  solve  the  phenomenon  befon 
us.  If  I  remember  his  opinion  correctly,  th* 
most  sublime  style  is  to  be  sought  in  a  state  of 
nature ;  when,  anterior  to  the  existence  of 
science,  the  scantiness  of  a  language  forces 
a  people  to  notice  the  points  of  resemblance 
between  the  great  natural  objects  with  which 
they  are  surrounded ;  to  apply  to  one  the 
terms  which  belong  to  another  ;  and  thus,  by 
compulsion,  to  rise  at  once  into  simile  and  met- 
aphor, and  launch  into  all  the  boldness  of  trope 
and  figure.  If  this  be  true,  it  would  seem  that 
the  progress  of  a  civilized  nation  toward  sub- 
limity of  style  is  perfectly  a  retrograde  mariceu 
vre  :  that  is,  that  they  will  be  sublime  accord- 
ing to  the  nearness  of  their  approach  to  the 
primeval  state  of  nature 

This  is  a  curious,  and  to  me,  a  bewitching 
subject.  But  it  leads  to  a  volume  of  thought, 
which  is  not  to  be  condensed  in  a  letter.  I 
will  remark  only  one  extraordinary  fact  as  it 
relates  to  style.  The  Augustan  age  is  pro- 
nounced by  some  critics  to  have  furnished  the 
finest  models  of  style,  embellished  to  the  high- 
est endurable  point;  and  of  this,  Cicero  is 
always  adduced  as  the  most  illustrious  example. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  249 

Yet  it  is  remarkable,  that  seventy  or  eighty 
years  afterwards,  when  the  Roman  style  had 
become  much  more  luxuriant,  and  was  de- 
nounced by  the  critics  of  the  day*  as  having 
transcended  the  limits  of  genuine  ornament, 
Pliny,  the  younger,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend, 
thought  it  necessary  to  enter  into  a  formal  vin- 
dication of  three  or  four  metaphors,  which  he 
had  used  in  an  oration,  and  which  had  been 
censured  in  Rome  for  their  extravagance ;  but 
which,  by  the  side  of  the  meanest  of  Curran's 
figures,  would  be  poor,  insipid  and  flat.  Yet 
who  will  say  that  Curran's  style  has  gone  be- 
yond the  point  of  endurance?  Who  is  not 
pleased  with  its  purity  ?  Who  is  not  ravished 
by  its  sublimity. 

In  England,  how  wide  is  the  chasm  between 
the  style  of  Lord  Verulam  and  that  of  Edmund 
Burke,  or  M'Intosh's  introduction  to  his  Vin- 
dices  GalliccB!  That  of  the  first  is  the  plain 
dress  of  a  Quaker ;  that  of  the  two  last  the 
magnificent  paraphernalia  of  Louis  XIV.  of 
France.  In  lord  Verulam's  day,  his  style  was 
distinguished  for  its  superior  ornament ;  and  hi 
this  respect,  it  was  thought  impossible  to  sur- 

*  See  duinctillian's  Institutes. 


250  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

pass  it.  Yet  Mr.  Burke,  Mr.  M'Intosh,  and  the 
other  fine  writers  of  the  present  age,  have,  by 
contrast,  reduced  lord  Verulam's  flower  garden 
to  the  appearance  of  a  simple  culinary  square. 

Perhaps  it  is  for  this  reason,  and  because,  as 
you  knoAV,  I  am  an  epicure,  that  I  am  very 
much  interested  by  lord  Verulam's  manner. 
It  is  indeed  a  most  agreeable  relief  to  my  mind 
to  turn  from  the  stately  and  dazzling  rhapso- 
dies of  the  day,  and  converse  with  this  plain 
and  sensible  old  gentleman.  To  me  his  style 
is  gratifying  on  many  accounts ;  and  there  is 
this  advantage  in  him,  that  instead  of  having 
three  or  four  ideas  rolled  over  and  over  again, 
like  the  fantastic  evolutions  and  ever-changing 
shapes  of  the  same  sun-embroidered  cloud,  you 
gain  new  materials,  new  information  at  every 
breath. 

Sir  Robert  Boyle  is,  in  my  opinion,  another 
author  of  the  same  description,  and  therefore 
an  equal,  if  not  a  higher  favpurite  with  me. 
In  point  of  ornament  he  is  the  first  grade  in 
the  mighty  space,  (through  the  whole  of  which 
the  gradations  may  be  distinctly  traced,)  between 
Bacon  and  Burke.  Yet  he  has  no  redundant 
verbiage  ;  has  about  him  a  perfectly  patriarchal 
simplicity  ;  and  every  period  is  pregnant  with 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  251 

matter.  He  has  this  advantage  too  over  lord 
Yerulam  ;  that  he  not  only  investigates  all  the 
subjects  which  are  calculated  to  try  the  clear- 
ness, the  force  and  the  comprehension  of  the 
human  intellect :  he  introduces  others  also,  in 
handling  of  which  he  shows  the  masterly 
power  with  which  he  could  touch  the  keys  of 
the  heart,  and  awaken  all  the  tones  of  sensi- 
bility which  belong  to  man.  Surely,  if  ever  a 
human  being  deserved  to  be  canonized  for 
great,  unclouded  intelligence,  and  seraphic 
purity  and  ecstasy  of  soul,  that  being  was  Sir 
Robert  Boyle. 

When  I  reflect  that  this  "  pure  intelligence, 
this  link  between  men  and  angels,"  was  a 
Christian,  and  look  around  upon  the  petty  in- 
fidels and  deists  with  which  the  world  swanns, 
I  am  lost  in  amazement !  Have  they  seen  ar- 
guments against  religion,  which  were  not  pre- 
sented to  Sir  Robert  Boyle?  His  religious 
works  show  that  they  have  not.  Are  their 
judgments  better  able  to  weigh  those  argu- 
ments than  his  was?  They  have  not  the 
vanity  even  to  believe  it.  Is  the  beam  of  their 
judgments  more  steady,  and  less  liable  to  be 
disturbed  by  passion  than  his  ?  No  ;  for  in  this 
he  seems  to  have  excelled  all  mankind.  Are 


252  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

their  minds  more  elevated  and  more  capable  of 
comprehending  the  whole  of  this  great  subject, 
with  all  its  connexions  and  dependencies,  than 
was  the  mind  of  Sir  Robert  Boyle  ?  Look  at 
the  men :  and  the  question  is  answered.  How 
then  does  it  happen  that  they  have  been  con- 
ducted to  a  conclusion  so  perfectly  the  reverse 
of  his  ?  It  is  for  this  very  reason ;  because 
their  judgments  are  less  extricated  from  the 
influence  and  raised  above  the  mists  of  passion : 
it  is  because  their  minds  are  less  ethereal  and 
comprehensive  ;  less  capable  than  his  was  "  to 
look  through  nature  up  to  nature's  God."  And 
let  them  hug  their  precious,  barren,  hopeless 
infidelity:  they  are  welcome  to  the  horrible 
embrace  !  May  we,  my  friend,  never  lose  the 
rich  and  inexhaustible  comforts  of  religion. 
Adieu,  my  S 


THE    BRITISH    SPY. 


THE  author  of  "  An  Inquirer"  on  the  theorj 

f  the  earth,  begs  leave  to  offer  the  following 

observations  to  the  publisher  of  "the  British 

Spy,"   in   answer  to   some  of  his  additional 

notes. 

When  the  Inquirer  read,  in  the  second  letter 
of  the  British  Spy,  that  "  the  perpetual  revolu- 
tion of  the  earth,  from  west  to  east,  has  the  obvi- 
ous tendency  to  conglomerate  the  loose  sands  of 
the  sea  on  the  eastern  coast," — "that  whether 
the  rolling  of  the  earth  to  the  east  give  to  the 
ocean  an  actual  counter-current  to  the  west 
or  not,  the  newly  emerged  pinnacles  are 
whirled,  by  the  earth's  motion,  through  the 
waters  of  the  deep ;"  and  from  the  continued 
operation  of  the  causes  which  produced  them, 
that  "  all  continents  and  islands  will  be  caused, 
reciprocally  to  approximate ;"  when  he  read 
these  and  other  similar  passages,  he  saw  no 
reason  to  doubt,  that  the  British  Spy  considered 
the  ocean  now,  as  well  as  formerly,  affected  by 

the  rotation  of  the  earth ;  or,  to  express  the 
22 


254  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

same  thing  more  correctly,  that  the  rotatory  mo 
tion  of  the  earth  is  but  partially  communicated 
to  the  ocean.  This  opinion,  which  a  thousand 
facts  may  be  brought  to  disprove,  aad  which 
the  favourite  cosmogonist  of  the  British  Spy 
says*  no  man  can  entertain  who  has  the  least 
knowledge  of  physics,  it  was  decorous  to  sup- 
pose, had  been  advanced  from  inadvertence. 
If  the  meaning  of  the  writer  were  taken  by  the 
Inquirer  in  a  greater  latitude  than  was  meant, 
he  is  not  the  less  sorry  for  his  mistake,  because 
it  was  not  a  natural  one,  and  was  not  confined 
to  himself. 

But  the  annotator  of  the  Spy,  without  say- 
ing whether  the  supposed  current  now  exist  or 
not,  thinks  \hz  former  existence  of  such  a  cur- 
rent not  improbable,  and  puts  a  case  by  way 
of  illustrating  his  hypotheses.  My  reasoning 
on  the  subject,  somewhat  different  from  his,  is 
briefly  this : 

If  the  whole  surface  of  the  earth,  when  it 
first  received  its  rotatory  impulse,  were  covered 
with  water,  and  this  impulse  were  communi- 

*  The  passage  in  Smellie's  translation  of  Buffon  stands 
thus :  but  every  man  who  has  the  least  knowledge  of  phy- 
sics, must  allow,  that  no  fluid  which  surrounds  the  earth, 
can  be  affected  by  its  rotation. —  Vol.  I.  On  Regular  Winds. 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  255 

cated  to  its  solid  part  alone,  then,  indeed,  a 
current  to  the  west  would  be  produced ;  and 
would  continue,  until  the  resistance,  occasioned 
by  the  friction  of  the  waters,  gradually  commu- 
nicated the  whole  motion  of  the  earth  to  the 
ocean.  It  is  not  easy  to  say,  when  this  cur- 
rent would  cease ;  but  it  seems  to  me  it  would 
be  more  likely  to  wear  the  bed  of  the  ocean 
smooth,  than  to  raise  protuberances ;  and  even, 
though  it  were  to  cause  sand  banks,  it  could 
never  elevate  them  above  its  own  level. 

I  should  observe  that,  to  avoid  circumlocu- 
tion, I  admit  a  current  of  tl:e  west ;  because 
the  effect  is  the  same,  as  to  alluvion,  whether 
the  earth  revolve  under  the  waters,  or  the 
waters  roll  over  the  earth ;  though  the  fact  is, 
that  the  ocean,  like  the  oil  in  the  plate,  in  the 
experiment  proposed,  would  have  a  tendency 
to  remain  at  rest,  and  whatever  motion  it 
acquired,  must  be  to  the  east,  like  that  of  the 
earth  from  which  it  was  derived.  • 

If  we  suppose  a  few  solitary  mountains 
to  lift  their  heads  above  the  circumfluous  ocean, 
we  may  infer,  by  the  rules  of  strict  analogy, 
that  they  would  be  worn  away  by  the  friction 
of  the  passing  waters,  rather  than  that  they 
would  receive  any  accessions  of  soil. 


256  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

But  let  us  suppose  some  ridges  of  mountains 
running  from  north  to  south,  and  of  sufficient 
extent  and  elevation  to  obstruct  the  course  of 
the  waters.  In  tkis  case,  the  sudden  whirling 
of  the  earth  to  the  east  would  force  the  ocean 
on  its  western  shores,  where  it  would  accumu- 
late, until  the  gravity  of  the  mass  thus  elevated, 
overcome  the  force  which  raised  it.  Then  one 
vast  undulation  of  the  stupendous  mass  would 
take  place,  from  shore  to  shore,  and  would 
continue  until  it  gradually  yielded  to  the  united 
effect  of  friction  and  gravity.  A  comparison 
between  vessels  of  different  sizes,  partly  filled 
with  water,  might  enable  us  to  form  a  rational 
conjecture  of  the  term  of  this  oscillation ;  but 
be  it  in  one  year,  or  many  years,  I  think  the 
effect  would  more  probably  be,  an  abrasion 
of  the  mountain,  than  the  formation  of  a 
continent. 

But  the  postulatum,  that  the  first  impulse  to 
the  earth  was  communicated  to  its  solid  part 
alone,  on  which  all  these  suppositions  rest,  is 
but  a  possibility :  whether  we  suppose  that  the 
cause,  which  first  whirled  the  earth  on  its  axis, 
is  an  ascending  link  in  nature's  chain  of  causes, 
or  the  immediate  act  of  the  first  Great  Cause 
of  all,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  it  penetrated  and 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  257 

influenced  every  particle  of  matter,  whether  it 
were  solid,  liquid  or  aeriform. 

On  this  subject,  our  suppositions  are  to  be 
limited  only  by  our  invention.  One  man  may 
resort  to  electricity,  according  to  an  alleged 
property  of  that  fluid ;  another,  to  magnetism ; 
a  third,  to  the  action  of  the  sun's  rays ;  and  a 
fourth,  to  a  quality  inherent  in  matter ;  accord- 
ing to  either  of  which  hypotheses,  no  current 
could  have  existed. 

Monsieur  de  Buffon,  indeed,  ascribes  the 
earth's  rotation  to  a  mechanical  and  partial  im- 
pulse, the  oblique  stroke  of  a  comet ;  but  as, 
according  to  him,  the  earth  was  then  one  entire 
globe  of  melted  glass,  its  rotatory  motion  must 
have  been  uniform,  long  before  the  ocean 
existed. 

Whoever  would  dispel  the  clouds  in  which 
this  question  is  enveloped,  and  make  it  as  clear 
"  as  the  light  of  heaven,"  should  indeed  be  mihi 
magnus  Apollo :  but  hypotheses,  of  which 
nothing  can  be  said,  but  that  they  aie  not  im- 
possible, though  they  may  beguile  the  lounger 
of  a  heavy  hour,  are  little  likely  to  further  our 
knowledge  of  nature.  In  so  boundless  a  field 
of  conjecture,  with  scarce  one  twinkling  star  to 

guide  us-  we  can  hardly  hope  to  find,  among 
22* 


258  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

the  numberless  tracts  of  error,  that  which  singly 
leads  to  truth. 

When  the  Inquirer  spoke  of  the  general 
bouleversement  which  many  subterranean  ap- 
pearances indicated,  he  did  not  mean  even  to 
hint  at  their  cause,  but  simply  to  express,  as  the 
word  imports,  the  topsyturvy  disorder,  in  which 
vegetable  and  marine  substances  are  found ;  the 
one  far  above,  and  the  other  far  below,  the  seat 
of  its  original  production.  At  the  moment  he 
was  attempting  to  show,  that  every  explana- 
tion of  these  phenomena  was  imperfect  and 
premature,  he  hardly  would  have  ventured  to 
give  one  himself ;  for  though  "  we  should  not 
suffer  ourselves  to  be  passively  fed  on  the  pap 
of  science,"  when  we  have  attained  our  matu- 
rity, yet  until  we  have  attained  it,  he  thinks  it 
is  better  to  be  in  leading-strings,  than  to  stumble 
at  every  step. 

In  the  progress  of  science,  I  doubt  whether 
sound  principles  are  abandoned  for  those  that 
are  less  true.  Novelty  in  moral  speculation, 
aided  as  it  may  be,  by  our  passions,  may  daz- 
zle and  mislead,  but  in  physics,  though  one 
error  may  give  place  to  another,  when  truth 
once  gets  possession,  she  holds  it  firm,  ever 
after.  Thus  the  theories  of  cosmogonists  foJ- 


THE    BRITISH    SPY.  259 

low  one  another,  like  wave  obtruding  upon 
xrave  ;  each  demonstrating  the  fallacy  of  those 
which  went  before,  and  proved  absurd  in  turn ; 
while  the  philosophy  of  Newton,  in  spite  of 
the  continued  opposition  of  French  academi- 
cians, and  the  later  reveries  of  St.  Pierre,  gradu- 
ally gains  universal  credit  and  respect.  The 
member  of  the  Royal  Society,  who  accounted 
for  the  trade  winds  by  the  transpiration  of 
tropical  sea- weed,  may  have  had  his  admirers  ; 
but  he  has  not  been  able  to  shake  the  theory  of 
Dr.  Halley.  If  Harvey's  system  of  generation 
had  been  as  well  supported  by  facts,  as  his  dis- 
covery of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  all  hos- 
tility to  the  one,  as  well  as  the  other,  would 
have  ended  with  his  life. 

It  certainly  i?,  not  philosophical  "  to  discard 
a  theory,"  because  it  may  be  unsupported  by 
a  name,  nor  yet  because  there  are  other  more 
recent  theories.  In  these  and  many  other 
general  remarks,  I  entirely  concur  with  the 
writer,  though  I  do  not  clearly  discern  their 
application. 

I  cannot  conclude,  without  regretting,  that  1 
should  be  compelled  to  differ  with  a  writer 
whose  talents  I  so  much  admire,  and  whose 
sentiments  I  so  often  approve ;  but  to  borrow 


260  THE    BRITISH    SPY. 

a  celebrated  sentiment,  ray  esteem  for  truth  ex- 
ceeds even  my  esteem  for  the  British  Spy. 
Though  neither  of  us  may  chance  to  convince 
the  other,  yet,  if  our  discussion  should  lead 
those  who  have  not  the  same  parental  tender- 
ness for  particular  hypotheses  or  doubts,  to  a 
better  understanding  of  the  subject,  the  light, 
that  is  thus  elicited,  will  console  me  for  the 
collision  which  produced  it. 

October  12,  1803. 


THE  END. 


[llllll  III!  Hi''  •*li' |IIM  IM  ' 

A     000  796  41 1     7 


